For those of you who do not know, The Hottest 100 is an annual musical wrap up of the previous years music. The countdown is hosted by the radio station Triple J (Home to Like a Version and countless live performance recordings) and is voted for by the public all over the world. This year will most likely be the biggest year for The Hottest 100 for a a lot of great reasons and one really bad reason. As Triple J is the host of mainly independent and against the grain music it is gained a lot of notoriety mainly due to BuzzFeed. Here is why the hottest 100 is unique and why it means so much to so many people.
Triple J has been a world leading radio station for things like Free speech over the years. It has always been a radio station whose listeners thrive on challenging the status quo and by supporting the lesser known musicians to rise up to popularity. Some noticeable people that Triple J have pushed up into the mainstream include; Gotye, Sia and Vance Joy. This is due to the fact that Triple J plays the artists that the producers enjoy not exactly what the commercial radio stations play and what is the most likely to get people to tune in. There is always some crossover with songs like Uptown Funk getting love on Triple J but for the main part this is the case.
This leads into the Hottest 100 due to the fact that because the producers play lesser known music, the Hottest 100 is riddled with absolute gems that most people outside of Triple J haven’t heard of and songs that a majority of long time listeners absolutely adore. You do not go to the Hottest 100 to listen to songs you heard on loop from your local commercial radio station as that appeals to not only go against the entire idea of Triple J, but also the idea of the countdown itself.
This is where the notorious Buzzfeed article really gets my blood boiling. Triple J fans are NOT a group of “.. music snobs…”, they are people who care about giving voices to the underprivileged and the under represented. It is a platform in which artists of high calibre that do not want to get involved in the business of selling themselves through record labels can express themselves and push through the ceiling. Take Sheplifefor example. Sheplife is a hip-hop song by rapper Briggs that talks about the harsh environment and awful poverty experienced by indigenous Australians. It got a lot of air time on Triple J last year. Should a song like Shake It Off, a song that is played four times a day on every commercial radio station really hold back the smaller artists that are trying to scream into the abyss?
BuzzFeed, entirely ignorant of what Triple J is, has the audacity to start the hashtag “Tay4Hottest100” and completely disregard the opinions of the people who have been avid listeners of the station for the whole year. It wasn’t long ago that Kanye West was shutting down Taylor Swift in much of a similar way that BuzzFeed is trying to attack the world’s largest musical democracy. “Hey yo Peking Duck, I’m gonna let you finish but Taylor Swift had the most popular song of the year!!”.
In short, if you are voting purely because Taylor Swift was not played on Triple J, stop. If you want to make this a competition as to who rose the most revenue by pandering to the masses go and have a look at the iTunes charts. All we have is The Hottest 100 and we refuse to let you steal that away from us.
Tune in on the Triple J Website on the 26th of January at 12:00pm AEDT for the hottest 100 and may the best song win!
Edit: Loving the discussion! A lot of people are pointing out past winners that had very popular songs. Of course the number 1 spot is going to go to a very popular song. The difference is that most of the bands that win have been bands that have been played on Triple J long before their increase in popularity and quality. Macklemore however gained traction in Triple J a few months prior to his huge outburst of fame but was notable due to his independent release of his album.