Want to relive the highs and lows of the somewhat controversial 2012 Triple J Hottest 100, but simply don’t have the five and a half hours it would take to listen? Well, a three-piece rock cover band from Melbourne have your solution.
The Bareback TittySquad, have recorded a 30-minute ‘live’ mash-up of Triple J’s music poll. Published on YouTube on Sunday, the video shows Miles de Carteret, Callum Padgham, and Gustaf Sjodin Enstrom a.k.a. the Bareback TittySquad, playing a medley of all 100 songs – in their underwear.
They have taken about 15 seconds of each track and successfully merged them into one (more or less) cohesive song, from #100 Everything Everything’s “Cough Cough” to the controversial #1 Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Thrift Shop”. They also created an interactive menu on the YouTube page so viewers can easily find each cover individually.
Some notable interpretations are that of Grimes’ “Genesis”, where they substitute the lyrics for ghost-like noises, and perhaps most impressively Tame Impala’s “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”, which they perform backwards.
The half-hour tribute isn’t entirely live though, and the overdubbing is quite obvious in the video; when people started speculating online about the authenticity of the performance, the band admitted to miming to a pre-recorded track on social news website, reddit:
“Just to clarify friends, you’re spot on – we mimed this performance to an audio track which we spent 5 weeks writing and rehearsing in lead up to the shoot. Yes, we can and do play the entire thing live – however anyone with a passable knowledge of film would understand that any live recording simply would not do the mixtape justice. Honestly, absolutely flattered that everyone is so behind it – we’ll have the audio online soon and can’t wait to share it with you.”
Triple J’s most recent annual Australia Day countdown caused more controversy than usual, not only because the number one spot went to “Thrift Shop”, the first time a hip hop track has achieved such a feat in the poll’s history, but also because of ‘The Warmest 100’, a prediction list put together by two Brisbane-based IT experts that managed to accurately predict the upper half of the Hottest 100 by analysing votes through social media.
Adam Knox and Nick Drewe used algorithms that analysed over 35,000 votes submitted to twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, the two managed to very closely predict which songs would make it into the national youth broadcaster’s list (92 out of 100 to be precise).
Whilst an impressive feat, it was met with mixed reactions as it ruined the element of surprise that has for so long been a factor in the countdown. It caused such a stir that shortly afterwards the ABC announced they were considering changing the voting system.“Just to clarify friends, you’re spot on – we mimed this performance to an audio track which we spent 5 weeks writing and rehearsing in lead up to the shoot.” – The BareBack TittySquad
An ABC spokesman told The Age, “While [posting their results on social media platforms] does open up the poll to speculation and analysis, there are always going to be surprises and a lot of fun on the day. We may make a few changes to the system to avoid spoiler attempts in the future though.”
Given how well-received the Bareback Titty Squad’s rendition has already been, maybe they could set their sights on doing the same for Triple J’s “Hottest 200”, which they revealed the week following the original countdown, counting down the songs voted number 200 to 101 and the first time Triple J aired the ‘runners-up list’ on the station.
In related Triple J News, the youth station recently celebrated a landmark, noting that “there are more people listening to Triple J now than at any point in the station’s history,” according to Station Manager Chris Scaddan following the station’s positive results in the latest radio survey figures, which an increase in listeners across states, as well as to their key demographic of 18-24 year olds.
Scaddan was positive about the results, he also emphasised that Triple J did not solely use the ratings as a measure of audience satisfaction, commenting that: “we treat the ratings as just one way we judge our audience.”
“We’ve got just under 600,000 Facebook fans – no other network comes close to that. Our Youtube videos clock up hundreds of thousands of views. We get thousands of text messages every day. We piece it all together to get a realistic view of how our audience is going,” noted Scaddan on how the station assess audience feedback.
“We pay more attention to the way the audience engages with us daily online, on the air through SMS and talkback and through our live events like the upcoming One Night Stand,” referring to Triple J’s free all-ages concert, that will this year head to Dubbo, New South Wales with an all-Australian lineup of The Rubens, Flume, Ball Park Music and Seth Sentry.
