Triple J Hottest 100

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another ridiculously awful top 20 selected by listeners to australia's national youth music network. it's even worse than last year and that's saying something. this is finally the last straw in my 25 years of listening to this station...

# Artist Song Comment
20 Spiderbait Fuckin' Awesome any song with swearing in it will get in the top 20
19 The Streets Dry Your Eyes pleasant
18 The Streets Fit But You Know It fun for the 1st 3 times but now creates gastric
17 Butterfingers Your Mommas On Top Of My Things To Do List annoying double-entendre driven indie-rock
16 Grinspoon A Hard Act To Follow lacklustre alterna-rock
15 Ben Lee Gamble Everything For Love quite enticing until the bad reggae rhythm kicks in
14 Evermore It's Too Late slick melodic rock with feeling - 'nuff said
13 The Killers Mr Brightside absolutely rancid rock
12 The Dresden Dolls Coin Operated Boy overlong comedy track with few laughs
11 Modest Mouse Float On post-franz ferdinand they still sound dated
10 The White Stripes Jolene the worst record they've ever released
9 Powderfinger Bless My Soul oh no, not THEM again
8 Little Birdie Beautifull To Me oversung uninteresting country rock
7 John Butler Trio Something's Gotta Give typical rootsy folk rock that sits on the brain like a turd
6 Missy Higgins Ten Days heartfelt songwriter stuff but tedious - good voice though
5 Spiderbait Black Betty hoary old rock standard played badly
4 The Killers Somebody Told Me impossibly it's even worse than #13
3 Eskimo Joe From The Sea the powderfinger you have when powderfinger don't have much to release
2 Missy Higgins Scar same as #6 but with a good tune
1 Franz Ferdinand Take Me Out amazingly, i still rather like this after the millionth hearing

― phil turnbull (philT), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

surprised it took you so long to get to that last straw Phil!

― bulbs (bulbs), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

well, in the last 10 years i've only ever listened sometimes in the mornings and occassionally in the afternoon so the steady drop in standards hasn't effected me too much. the alternatives in my regional area are paltry as well.

― phil turnbull (philT), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

sadly i NEVER listen to the radio anymore. i hear SER will be revamped into crud too. there's the occasional good thing on fbi tho ;)

― bulbs (bulbs), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

That list nearly gives Andrew Bolt's "take all the money away from the ABC" carping some weight!

― haitch™ (haitch), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:42 (twenty-one years ago)

(I quite like "Black Betty" though, haha)

― haitch™ (haitch), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:44 (twenty-one years ago)

what are you doing out of bed?

― bulbs (bulbs), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm at work!

― haitch™ (haitch), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

i just emailed you

― bulbs (bulbs), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

that butterfingers song is wretched, and the grinspoon song has the worst lyrics i've heard since the last cranberries album.

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 27 January 2005 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, pretty dire. The Streets, Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand I can deal with, maybe even Eskimo Joe I used to be able to stand, but not very encouraging is it? I heard Robbie Buck was talking about a listener backlash across the country when they occasionally trial or rotate more challenging (perhaps better) music. Stuff they (or I) might like more (i dunno, lightning bolt, destroyer, les savy fav even when they pushed Dappled Cities fly a bit). They are informed/controlled by the listenership/demographic. Chicken and the egg and all that, but there you go.

― PiersT, Thursday, 27 January 2005 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Fuck Triple J. They've been terrible for years, so this terrible list is hardly unexpected.

12 The Dresden Dolls Coin Operated Boy overlong comedy track with few laughs

"overlong"? I couldn't listen to it once through! Absolutely tedious, pointless, and imo completely unfunny to boot.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 27 January 2005 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Indie kids in being completely STUPID non-shocker!

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:12 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think jjj is really for indie kids anymore is it? in perth they listen to community radio. and who can blame them really.

i voted for float on. none of my other votes made it into the 100 never mind top 20.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:16 (twenty-one years ago)

It is for rubbish indie kids, the people that claim to reject pop, but think the way of doing that is to listen to, say, Grispoon, who are a pretty regular mainstay in the top 40, although not admittedly at the upper echelons of it.

I haven't voted since 1999, when I voted for "Deeper Water" by Deadstar.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

i voted last year but i don't remember what the song was.

my ambition for this year is to make it into the net 50, just once.

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I know someone who kept emailing me to get the band of a family member of theirs in. I thought "Well, OK, can't be worse than the usual stuff.", until their video came on Rage. It made me yearn for Powderfinger.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:34 (twenty-one years ago)

since when are the dresden colls a comedy act?

― chris andrews (fraew), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:35 (twenty-one years ago)

since they recorded that song

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:37 (twenty-one years ago)

who was it edward?

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:37 (twenty-one years ago)

God, I can't even remember. They're certainly not well known. From Adelaide, the video was animated, the band were like stick figures or something. I couldn't believe how awful it was.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

It certainly wasn't Tugboat, though.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I think i've seen that video and it is pretty dud. The band are flying through the stratosphere or something and end up being chased by aliens or something?

― PiersT, Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:46 (twenty-one years ago)

my ambition for this year is to make it into the net 50, just once.

But why do you care enough to even aspire to this?

(italics!!!)

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I think i've seen that video and it is pretty dud. The band are flying through the stratosphere or something and end up being chased by aliens or something?

I don't think the animated budget stretched to anything other than stick people doing Busted jumps.

― edward o (edwardo), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

oh it's not so much that i care, it would just be for shits and giggles and low-level notoriety

― the surface noise (slight return) (electricsound), Thursday, 27 January 2005 02:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Did any of that Libertines album make it onto the 100? At my rather... traumatic trip to an INDIE DISCO on NYE, all the indie "kids" rushed the floor for what I assume was them. Then left the floor once it stopped! So lame.

― haitch™ (haitch), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

indie kids shit me to tears. why must they look so woe-is-me all the time? god as if there is anything groundbreaking about the bloody libertines.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:18 (twenty-one years ago)

i am trapped the guy who replaced goldie writes for drum media and plays nothing but brian jonestown massacre :(

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:19 (twenty-one years ago)

haha evermore! thanks for taking them, australia!

― etc, Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:32 (twenty-one years ago)

we don't want them etc :( please take them back!!!

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I voted for maybe the first time this year since 1991! It were all writing on paper and putting stamps on envelopes and remembering songs from more than a year ago out of your own brane back then.

I love the Butterfingers song tho

― kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i always vote, even though none of my songs usually ever get in, it's my own little protest about the likes of powderfinger constantly getting a guernsey. sort of like me voting for the greens in the fed election even though i live in practically the safest liberal seat in WA.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think i've ever voted so i shouldn't complain i spose.

― bulbs (bulbs), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

the most annoying thing about the hottest 100 this year was the multitude of bogans disturbing my quiet day at the beach yesterday with portable radios blasting it out. in between throwing one of those torpedo toys that whistles. grrrr.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:53 (twenty-one years ago)

how rude!

i voted for once and, hell, i'm complaining. mainly coz my band didn't come in number 97.

― PiersT, Thursday, 27 January 2005 03:55 (twenty-one years ago)

mainly coz my band didn't come in number 97.

where did they come? what's special about no 97?

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:01 (twenty-one years ago)

We didn't come in at all though we were in the big list they create so people can have specifically directed choices. the Fragments, "You Saw Me Fall"

I just picked 97 coz, you know, it would have been nice to just sneak in.

― PiersT, Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought you people down there were all about Machine Gun Fellatio. The billboards told me so!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:53 (twenty-one years ago)

READ ONE GOOD BILLBOARD

― haitch™ (haitch), Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:55 (twenty-one years ago)

maybe next year piers! i think it would be better to be in the net 50 than the hottest 100 anyway. even though jjj is hardly indie-centric these days, the hottest 100 still isn't really even that representative of what jjj plays i don't think. the top ten reads like the playlist for mmm.

and mgf.... well crikey, not all of us ned! although i bet mgf made it into the list.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

READ ONE GOOD BILLBOARD

My fave billboard down there was the one calling you a bloody idiot if you were a drunk driver. I'd love to see an ad over here like that because the relative impact would be commercials going, "Hey asshole! Stop driving drunk!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Why not? Probably be a good ad Ned.

Thanks Gem - I'll bear that in mind re shooting for the net50. But let's keep it quiet eh? I have to pretend like i don't care! ;)

― PiersT, Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:07 (twenty-one years ago)

My thoughts on the top ten.

Evermore look and sound like they got lost on the way to the Wellington University Student Union way back in 1994 and travelled through a magic cupboard to Melbourne, 2005.

― Michael Stuchbery (Mikey Bidness), Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:13 (twenty-one years ago)

i voted for all the available tracks by the fiery furnaces and phoenix but i must have been the only one.

― phil turnbull (philT), Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:16 (twenty-one years ago)

mikey I can't help with your JBT "video" as posted on your LJ there, but I did hear a story that j0hn butl3r was seen driving a Porsche convertible in Melbourne, top down, very loudly playing HIS OWN ALBUM on the stereo!!

― haitch™ (haitch), Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't listened regularly to triple j for several years now. If theres nothing good on community radio up here, i sooner switch to commerical pap than these broadcasters who apparently pass for 'cool' these days.

― papa november (papa november), Thursday, 27 January 2005 05:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The complete and total lack of Jet makes me giddy with happiness.

― What's this place, Biblevania? (natepatrin), Thursday, 27 January 2005 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i voted for the fiery furnaces too phil!

also don't speak too soon nate, i think jet ARE in the 100, just not in the top 20 posted above

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 06:41 (twenty-one years ago)

They'll have been hoping that awful Oasis-y ballad of theirs went top 10, though, so I take that as a victory!

― haitch™ (haitch), Thursday, 27 January 2005 06:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I flicked on triple J today for the first time in an age, and they were playing Love of Diagrams. I was quite pleased.

― seuss, Thursday, 27 January 2005 07:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think i know the jet song. that's a victory too.

there are some good programs on jjj, i think it's just a matter of picking and choosing and listening to another station you like if you're not listening to a particular program. i like the 2005 program on sunday nights, and the blues and roots program. and often live at the wireless is really good.

they have some anniversary promotion on at the moment, and last sunday arvo they played this radioplay that was broadcast in the 1970s, i thought it was amazing.

― gem (trisk), Thursday, 27 January 2005 07:49 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd like to see billboards that say "if you voted for john butler you're a fucking idiot"

― thagregman, Thursday, 27 January 2005 08:18 (twenty-one years ago)

"Hey man why you always laughing at me?
What's so, what's so funny?
Cos take a look in the mirror say now what do you see?
You are just, you are just like me"

- John Butler

― Seuss, Thursday, 27 January 2005 08:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Gem - was that What's Rangoon To You Is Grafton To Me? veteran newsreader James Dibble narrating a cross-country acid trip?

― kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 27 January 2005 13:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Was 91 the first hottest 100 year? I seem to recall it was - and that year was great because it was a 100 of all time, and I had hoped that was how they'd always do it (as a curious way to track how tastes change). I still have a taping of many hours of the Rage special that accompanied that listing. I got as far as something like Metallica or REM (about 3 hours worth) then stopped it... I think Id had a fight with the boyfriend, I dunno. It was a great list though.

JJJ is bollocks now, but I dont listen to radio at all. Ever. Full stop.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 27 January 2005 13:32 (twenty-one years ago)

No, 1988 was the first one..."Love Will Tear Us Apart" won three or four straight years. Someone should post the link to the earliest top 100s...they were pretty spiffy.

― Ian Riese-Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 27 January 2005 14:33 (twenty-one years ago)

The first three were of-all-time, but between the second and third they had a) gone national, expanding their audience massively beyond the previous fifteen years cultivated inner-Sydney hipsters, and b) begun the rebranding of being aimed at teenagers rather than 18-30somethings (ie the B@rry Ch@pm@an years, Michael Tunn, loads of commercial radio DJ hires, everyone good ever sacked, most of them at once, etc).

So suddenly Joy Div got bumped to #2, and #s 1 and 3 of the audience-voted Best Songs Evar poll had in fact been released in the previous year. Hence "oops our audience is not capable of voting in this kind of poll, change the rules" ever since.

― kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 27 January 2005 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes! I remember several of those initial Best Songs Ever polls, and I too have the "Rage" specials on tape! I must have been about 14 when they went national, and those first few served as excellent primers on many of yer 80's post-punk/indie/rap delights I had missed as a kid. Been a loooooong time since JJJ has served that crucial a role here... *sigh*

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Thursday, 27 January 2005 22:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Gem - was that What's Rangoon To You Is Grafton To Me? veteran newsreader James Dibble narrating a cross-country acid trip?

yes yes it was!!! i thought it was totally amazing! i fell across it by chance in the car just as it was starting and ended up listening to the whole thing enthralled!

i listen to the radio pretty much constantly. these days i rarely listen to jjj, only the shows i really like. but we have an awesome community radio station here called rtrfm which pretty much fulfils all of my listening requirements.

― gem (trisk), Friday, 28 January 2005 01:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Here's the original Hot 100 poll taken in 1988 and played in 1989, here's the 1990 one, and this is 1991.

They've got a guestbook on the site for the 30th anniversary, asking people to list their favourite memories of the station, and it's been a mind-numbing mix of people who remember Jarvis Cocker's dad fondly, teenagers crying with laughter over a skit where Merrick and Rosso pretended to press a button marked DO NOT PRESS and took the station off the air (these people do not realise it was a skit), and people who desperately miss Maynard F# Crabbes doing the breakfast show (YAY!). But loads and loads of them have requested Rangoon to be replayed! And because of that (well I assume so) Radio National did at Christmas!! so I'm glad that JJJ did actually get around to it themselves...

― kit brash (kit brash), Friday, 28 January 2005 16:30 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

In the end its a matter of opinion and if thats what people think the top20 is then thats what it is. In my opinion the cd was good but it did get old after a bit but no one forces you to listen to it do they? If they do just buy some earmuffs.

― Calum Thaxter, Monday, 1 May 2006 07:18 (twenty years ago)

Remember those bright sunny days when that list was being made up? In the days before we knew of a band called "Wolfmother".

Ahhh, memories.

― Bring Me The Head of ESTEBAN BUTTEZ (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Monday, 1 May 2006 08:24 (twenty years ago)

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Triple J Hottest 100 - 2005