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Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Triple J kicks off new Aussie-themed poll - after Chappell Roan and Doja Cat's Hottest 100 wins copped public backlash
Triple J has extended an almighty olive branch to the Australian public, after back-to-back Hottest 100 wins by American artists sounded the death knell of the song contest's popularity. On Tuesday, June 17 voting officially opened for the new poll, 'The Hottest 100 of Australian songs'. The new countdown will take place on July 26 and has strict rules in place to ensure it honours Triple J's 50 years on-air milestone, and the 'support local' ethos of the national song contest which began in 1989. Eligible songs must have been released by January 19, 2025 and they must feature at least 50 per cent Australian artists. For example 'Rhyme Dust' by Dom Dolla and MK and 'Fancy' by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX pass, but no song by Split Enz will be considered. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. 'Because they are from New Zealand,' the voting page explains. Triple J's presenters have already weighed in with their favourites on social media, and so have a raft of Aussie artists. 'Hey guys Jimmy Barnes here,' the iconic rock singer said in a video posted on the voting page. 'I'm voting for Jett - Are You Gonna Be My Girl? Just because it's such a great recording, they are such a tight band, and he is such an awesome singer. I just thought that song jumped out of the radio when I heard it and it still does 'til this day,' Barnes said. Are You Gonna Be My Girl? won the hottest 100 in the 2003 year of its release. Missy Higgins will also be putting a 2003 track in her No.1 spot - London Still by The Waifs. 'I did so much touring with the Waifs back in the day when I was a wee little 17-year-old,' Higgins said. 'That band just took me on the road. They took me under their wing. I was such fan, it was like a dream come true. 'This song encapsulates that experience and that memory for me. It's such an Australian rite of passage going away to London for a bit and coming back.' Tash Sultana will be voting for Miracle by Matt Corby. 'Matt is a mate of mine. We've done a lot of work together and I think he is an underrated musician - who is so talented and works with so many people - that I don't really think that he's gotten the flowers that he deserves.' While some of our famous musicians are emphatically backing their colleagues and mentors, others are shamelessly campaigning for the win. The Veronicas' official account commented '*violins start playing*,' on the post in reference to their self-dubbed 'national anthem' Untouched. 'Literally come on,' Aussie pop group Cub Sport commented, as they encouraged people to vote for Mess Me Up. In 1994, Triple J rebooted the Hottest 100 concept so that only songs released in the previous calendar year are eligible. This format has seen Flume and Powderfinger top the charts on multiple occasions, with Angus & Julia Stone, Vance Joy, Chet Faker, The Wiggles, Ocean Alley, and Spiderbait also claiming the title in the contest's long history. Meanwhile, international acts like Oasis, Billie Eilish, The Cranberries, Gotye, and Kendrick Lamar have also taken out the top honour. Voting for the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs will close on July 17 at 5pm AEST. Notably, no tracks recorded for triple J's long-running Like A Version cover series will be considered. Listeners were highly critical of the Triple J presenters' top picks, as passionate music fans flooded the comments However, if an Australian song has been significantly re-record or remixed, it can be eligible for two separate entries. One particularly passionate Flume fan kept the caps lock on as he waded into the comments with this rallying cry: 'INNERBLOOM AND DON'T SPLIT THE VOTE WITH THE REMIX FFS.' As thousands of suggestions flooded the comments section, younger listeners encouraged people to get their 'parents and grandparents' to vote to ensure no Aussie 'classics' are missed. The announcement comes after US singer Chappell Roan claimed the win in 2025 with her Sapphic earworm 'Good Luck Babe!'. Listeners were less than impressed with overseas acts ruling the chart for the second year in a row, after Doja Cat's 'Paint The Town Red' won in 2024. Just 29 songs of the top 100 came from Australian acts in 2025, with Melbourne DJ Dom Dolla charting highly and Amyl and the Sniffers gaining multiple entries
ABC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Triple j's Hottest 100 of Australian songs is a rare and special countdown
The triple j Hottest 100 has been appointment listening for music lovers for decades. The concept is simple: Australian music lovers vote for their favourite songs of the past year and triple j counts down the most popular 100 across a day of wild and wonderful radio. On the most special occasions, triple j pulls out the concept for a themed edition of the countdown, and occasions don't get much more special than your 50th birthday. As part of triple j's milestone celebrations this year, it's inviting us to vote for the 100 best Australian songs, a prospect that is filling us with equal amounts of joy and fear as we consider how we're going to choose our votes. It's not the first time we've experienced a special edition of the Hottest 100. Let's reflect on the rare occasions the countdown has broken tradition and gone out with a non-annual countdown. The Hottest 100 began as an "all time" countdown in 1989 and remained that way for three years. Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart took out the top spot in the first two years, only to be pipped by Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1991, which was released just a couple of months earlier. The "all time" format reverted to an annual countdown in 1993 (there was no Hottest 100 in 92) and has been brought back twice since. In August 1998, triple j put out the call for the best songs of all time again, and the results were … well, a lot of them were pretty similar to what we saw seven years prior. Just like the last one, Nirvana took the top slot, while Hunters & Collectors nabbed second spot (where they'd sat in both 1989 and 1990) with their anthem Throw Your Arms Around Me. Just like in 91, The Cure were the most-voted-for artist, with five songs in the countdown (down from nine in 1991). So far, so much the same. But it wouldn't stay that way for long. Surprise Entry: Pauline Pantsdown — Backdoor Man (#92) Shoulda Been Higher: David Bowie — Heroes (#100) To mark the Hottest 100's 20th anniversary, this edition mirrored the original's "all time" format … to controversial results. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit was voted number one for a third time (after topping the polls in 1991 and 1998), demonstrative of an outcome that was great for white men with guitars. But not so much anything else. Voters leaned into rock music, with very little electronic in the mix, and no rap or hip hop besides The Nosebleed Section by Hilltop Hoods at number 17, the highest charting of 13 Australian acts. Worse still, there was next to no women: zero solo female artists, and just seven acts featuring a female instrumentalist or guest singer. Yikes. While half of the list was made up of songs that had never appeared in a Hottest 100 before (and in some cases, never would again), it reads more like a Rolling Stone albums list, reinforcing a vintage-rock canon: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones. Curiously, the youth were to blame! From the half a million votes, the 19-21 age group was the largest voting demographic. "Seeing their favourites, you'd think it was a much older demographic," then-music director Richard Kingsmill told The Australian at the time. Surprise Entry: The Shins– New Slang (#72) Shoulda Been Higher: Midnight Oil — Beds Are Burning (#97) The only ever "albums" Hottest 100 was, in typical triple j fashion, a big old celebration of Australian music. Powderfinger nabbed the top spot with their 2000 album Odyssey Number Five, retaining the hold the Brisbane band had over the Hottest 100 for many years. They were the only band to have two albums in the list's top 10, with their 1998 record Internationalist (which is a better album) appearing in sixth spot. The list will make you marvel at the depth and quality of Australian music and, while there's a bit of recency bias (forgive me for claiming that not all of the 11 albums released in 2010 deserved a spot), the list is an enticing feast of Australian music that makes us wonder why we listen to anything else. Unlike usual Hottest 100s, this one was broadcast over the span of two weeks to ensure listeners got a good sense of the depth of the records. Surprise Entry: Gypsy & The Cat — Gilgamesh (#91) Shoulda Been Higher: The Go-Betweens — 16 Lovers Lane (#84) The first non-annual countdown to have a time stipulation saw audiences vote for songs released between January 1, 1993, and December 31, 2012. You know what that means? No Teen Spirit, no Joy Division, no Hunters & Collectors, hell The Cure — who'd dominated early all time lists — didn't get a look-in … It's interesting to see how the mood around certain songs and movements had changed over the years. Oasis topped the countdown with Wonderwall, but that song only managed to hit 12th spot in the 2009 count. You can see the trajectory of The Killers's Mr. Brightside through these lists: It was number 13 in its year of release, 38th in 2009's all time countdown, and it landed in seventh here. Would it go higher today? It wasn't the best showing for Australian songs, which made up a relatively modest 29 per cent of the countdown. Hilltop Hoods's The Nosebleed Section ranked best at number four, while of course Powderfinger scored two top 10 entries. Surprise Entry: Not many surprises here! The Kooks's Naive (#87) didn't make the countdown upon its release in 2006, so we'll say that. But it has since become an anthem … Shoulda Been Higher: Coolio — Gangsta's Paradise (ft. L.V.) (#85) Not so fun fact: This countdown was broadcast on March 14, 2020, right before COVID-19 forced most of Australia into lockdown. Pre-pandemic, it seemed the hardest thing voters had to contend with was choosing only 10 songs from across 10 years, rather than just 12 months. 2012 proved to be the "Hottest year", making up 20 entries in the poll, while 67 per cent of the list came out in 2014 or earlier. Half the fun was comparing how tunes had gained favour — with 12 songs jumping up in rankings from previous Hottest 100 appearances — or fallen out of it, with 78 dropping down. That included all previous Hottest 100 number ones making way for a new victor: Tame Impala. Kevin Parker's actually-it's-just-one-guy project had always performed well in the Hottest 100, including with four top 10 rankings from 11 entries, but The Less I Know The Better marked Tame Impala's first time at number one. (He'd return to the top slot in 2022, courtesy of a cover by The Wiggles.) Beating out international heavy-hitters like Arctic Monkeys, Kanye West, Lorde and local favourites Gotye, Flume and Angus & Julia Stone, Parker called the win the "most important thing to happen" to Tame Impala. For the rest of us, this special edition offered a compelling portrait of young Australia's shifting music tastes over a rapidly changing decade. Surprise Entry: Adrian Lux– Teenage Crime (#59) Shoulda Been Higher: Azealia Banks — 212 ft. Lazy Jay (#68) The latest non-annual Hottest 100 was a celebration of triple j's other big brand. Swelling from its origins as a humble, mostly acoustic mornings segment in 2004 to a blockbuster, internationally renowned platform, Like A Version got the Hottest 100 treatment. And Aussie artists dominated. Eighty-one songs in the countdown came from homegrown artists, the most of any Hottest 100 countdown. The likes of Lime Cordiale taking on Divinyls' biggest hit, A.B. Original rewiring a Paul Kelly classic, and King Stingray giving Coldplay a Yolŋu manikay makeover all reaching the pointy end. The people's top choice? Sydney trio DMA'S, who had just two acoustic guitars, a tender vocal performance, some chewing gum, and a dream. But their stripped-back take on Cher's 'Believe' was the clear frontrunner of the 840 eligible Like A Versions. Besides demonstrating how wildly the ingredients can vary to produce a successful cover, the LAV list shows how fun a themed Hottest 100 can be outside the tried-and-true recipe of voting on the year's hottest songs. Surprise Entry: grentperez — Teacher's Pet (#91) Shoulda Been Higher: Julia Jacklin — Someday (#79) The Hottest 100 of Australian Songs happens on triple j, Double J, triple j Unearthed and triple j Hottest on Saturday, July 26. Get all the info here.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Win the Hottest Ticket
Vote and you could win a double pass to every single triple j and Double J supported festival and tour for a whole year - PLUS VIP tickets to Spilt Milk. This is huge! To enter the competition, vote in the Hottest 100 of Australian Songs and tell us in 50 words or less which Australian act you would take an alien to see and why . Imagine an alien lands in your backyard and has never heard Australian music - your task is to take it to one gig. We'll get you on air after the countdown to tell us all about it, and in return you could be crowned the winner of the Hottest Ticket. Check out the terms and conditions here.
The Guardian
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Australian artists making waves globally but local listening at ‘historic low'
Australian music is thriving on the world stage but new research shows it is fading fast from local playlists and charts. Only 8% of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia in 2024 were Australian, an analysis in a Creative Australia report finds. According to one of the report's key researchers, Christen Cornell, it takes local music consumption to an 'historic low'. Yet at the same time Australian artists are making waves internationally, with 80% of Spotify royalties for Australian artists now coming from overseas. 'Exports are booming, with artists like the Kid Laroi, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Amyl and the Sniffers and Vacations leading the charge,' Cornell said. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'It shows us this isn't about quality, it's about visibility. And we're risking missing out on our own success story.' The second Listening In report, building on an earlier report released by Creative Australia in April, highlights how globalisation and streaming are reshaping an industry that no longer measures consumption based on what we buy but what we listen to. The three-part study, with collaboration by independent music company Untitled Group and not-for-profit youth music organisation The Push, drew on more than 10,000 responses across four surveys, additional focus groups with a heavy emphasis towards Australians 25 and under, and trend data from Nielsen over the past five years. Analysis of Aria charts, national polls such as Triple J's Hottest 100 and independent research by music industry professional and academic Tim Kelly were also used, revealing comprehensive trends in the way Australians are consuming music and how they feel about it. Millie Millgate, the director of Creative Australia's Music Australia, said the research showed that while Australians may claim they love local music and want to hear more of it, there is a clear gap between sentiment and action. While 71% of respondents said they felt proud when they heard Australian music, and 66% wanted to hear more, only one-third actively sought it out – on streaming platforms such as Spotify (the most popular streaming platform), YouTube (the most popular platform for discovery) and Apple Music, as well as at music festivals, live events and through word-of-mouth. 'If we want a thriving and sustainable music industry in this country, we all need to do our bit to actively seek out and support local music,' Millgate said. 'What's at stake is not just the ability of emerging local artists to break through – it's the future of a music industry that reflects who we are, tells Australian stories.' The report found that listeners are increasingly defaulting to American music, which is now, as in many other English-speaking markets such as the UK, Canada and New Zealand, dominating Australia's charts and playlists. Ambivalent attitudes towards the algorithms used by streaming platforms, and the role these algorithms play in determining what Australians are listening to, was a consistent issue raised by respondents. 'Many expressed a kind of appreciation for the fact that the algorithm will navigate through an incredible amount of material and do the work for them … but then there's also an acknowledgment and expressed concern that this is making it difficult for new artists to break through,' Cornell said. 'Some people talked about trying to break the algorithm, or setting tasks for themselves not to use the algorithm being imposed upon them. But at the same time, there were plenty who are acknowledging that it's a 'tedious task', trying to work against a system which is making your life more convenient.' According to a 2024 analysis by US music industry platform MusicRadar, more music was released in a single day that year – an average of 120,000 new tracks were uploaded to streaming services daily – than during the whole of 1989. 'Algorithms are partly responsible but it's also just the sheer amount of music that is available that has led to this situation,' Cornell said. 'It's not just the entire world that is available through your streaming platform, it's all the music that has ever been released, which is why we're seeing the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac back in the charts. 'These factors make it really difficult for new local artists to break through.' Models used in non-English-speaking nations such as France, Brazil and South Korea, where local music consumption is on the rise, were examined in the report. Such countries had deployed national curation strategies, including locally specific streaming platforms and support for domestic artists. More than 40% of Australian respondents said they would pay for an Australian-only streaming service, Cornell said, with First Nations participants, young people and regional Australians the most enthusiastic.
Daily Mail
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Superjesus singer Sarah McLeod says the Australian music industry is still very much a 'blokes game'
Rocker Sarah McLeod has revealed that, when it comes to sexism in the Australian music industry, little has changed in decades. As frontwoman for The Superjesus, McLeod has enjoyed a 30 year career that has spawned four studio albums and three ARIA Awards. Speaking to he Daily Telegraph, McLeod, 52, who is also chair of advocacy group Women In Music, said that there had been little done to redress gender imbalances within the industry. 'Things have changed marginally but since I took on this role and I'm looking at the statistics, I see total imbalance everywhere,' she said. She said that statistics have shown that when it comes to festivals, female representation clocks in at around 'five percent or ten percent.' From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. The Superjesus were certainly no strangers to the Aussie festival circuit, being regular fixtures on the liked of Livid, Homebake, and the Big Day Out. She admitted that while once thinking the band missed out on festival slots due to lack of talent, she has since changed her tune. 'I used to think we didn't get chosen for festivals, or another female-fronted band didn't get picked, because we weren't good enough,' she told the publication. 'But over the years I've realised that it is still very much a blokes' game, and we play it the best we can.' It was a similar sentiment that McLeod expressed when talking to The Music in 2023. 'It still is very much a male-dominated world, and I don't think it's changed as much as it should have, but at least we're aware of it now,' she said. 'The discussions are open, but it's still very much a male-dominated world.' She added that in the early days of The Superjesus she felt like just one of the guys, until choosing to embrace her femininity on stage. 'I used to think we didn't get chosen for festivals, or another female-fronted band didn't get picked, because we weren't good enough, But over the years, I've realised that it is still very much a blokes' game, and we play it the best we can,' she added. Pictured: The Superjesus in 2001 'I was very much a scrappy little tomboy for the first ten years of my career. And I just became one of the fellas, and I was cool with that, she said. 'But it wasn't until a good decade in, where I was like, "Wait a minute, I'm going to stretch my femininity here and embrace my power. 'I don't need to be one of you guys. I've got something else I could be, something better".' Sarah caused a stir, back in 2014, after she hit out at a touring festival, from which The Superjesus were dropped, for being too male-centric. In a post to Facebook at the time, McLeod claimed that The Superjesus and the Baby Animals, fronted by Suze DeMarchi had been culled from a Day On The Green tour to make way for iconic UK rocker Billy Idol. 'Guys, I'm sorry to say this and we do not know why this has happened but The Superjesus and the Baby Animals have been booted off A Day On The Green in favour of adding Billy Idol,' she wrote. 'So it's now Billy, Cheap Trick, The Angels and The Choirboys. They will refund your tickets if you are no longer interested in attending this sausage fest.' 'It still is very much a male-dominated world, and I don't think it's changed as much as it should have, but at least we're aware of it now,' she said. 'The discussions are open, but it's still very much a male-dominated world' In a response to The Music, A Day On The Green promoter Michael Newton said gender did not play a role in the decision. 'I did not even think about it being a gender issue. It's bullshit, to be honest,' he said. The Superjesus are currently riding high off the back of the release of their fourth studio album in March. The self-titled album debuted in the top ten of the ARIA Album chart upon release marking their first top ten berth since 2000's Jet Age. The single, Something Good, given the remix treatment by Paul Mac, is also currently sitting at number 15 on the ARIA Club Tracks chart. Hot on the heels of their latest success, The Superjesus are now embarking on a national tour.
