Many of us no doubt celebrated Australia Day by sitting around the stereo and enjoying the Hottest 100, but as the countdown neared that much-coveted number one spot a few couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of women in the top 10.

Indeed, a solo female artist has never topped the Hottest 100, but the 2015 Hottest 100 marks the first time since 2012 that no solo female or female-fronted bands made it into the top 10 of the world’s biggest fan-voted music poll.

One person who couldn’t help but notice this depressing factoid was Australian sports writer Erin Riley, who tweeted that there’ve been more Hottest 100 winners who went to Melbourne’s St Kevin’s school than those who are female.

“Vance Joy and Chet Faker went to school together, which means the Hottest 100 has had more winners from St Kevin’s Toorak than women,” Riley wrote. But one St Kevin’s alum didn’t take too kindly to Ms Riley’s tweet.

Apparently taking Riley’s tweet very personally, The Daily Mail reports Chet Faker decided to rubbish any implication that ‘privilege’ had a role in his success, outlining his pain-staking rise in a series of since of since-deleted tweets.

“I skipped school every Wednesday yr12 to go 2 swinburne sec & sit in on audio class my school wouldn’t offer,” the ‘Talk Is Cheap’ singer wrote. “Studied at RMIT tafe audio engineering for 3 yes paid myself while busking in the city and working bar jobs.”

The tweets prompted a response from Ms Riley, who wrote, “Nobody’s denying you or anyone else worked hard. Rather, that success if hard work plus other factors, and networks and gender are part of that.”

Images via The Daily Mail

Faker then addressed his followers, writing, “I hope u guys aren’t just listening to my music cuz I went to nice school?” and later adding, “The music industry is gender biased. Id like to see more women represented.”

While Faker’s sentiment is positive, it’s interesting to note that just 1.5 out his last seven support acts on three of the biggest tours of his career have been female, with supports for his Built On Live tour entirely male.

After deleting his initial tweets, a contrite Faker explained that he’d made a mistake: “I’d like to go on record and mention that these tweets circling round were deleted for a reason. I completely missed the point.”

“I mistakenly took it personally. I realise now the tweet was referencing a much larger issue entrenched in our society. I want to acknowledge the larger issue of gender inequality. I’m sorry for derailing the conversation. I believe in equality.”

According to Riley, Faker’s reaction to her tweet triggered a torrent of abuse from the singer’s fans, though she insisted to the Daily Mail that the abuse she received “was clearly in no way [Faker’s] fault”.

“I really didn’t think this was a revolutionary idea,” Riley wrote on her blog, “yet the reaction I had to this pretty simple tweet was far more aggressive and, frankly, abusive than anything I experienced after I published a piece about sexism and cricket a few weeks ago.”

Get unlimited access to the coverage that shapes our culture.
to Rolling Stone magazine
to Rolling Stone magazine