With the conclusion of the Australia Day celebrations came the end of another year for Triple J’s Hottest 100, with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis taking home the most votes for a #1 win in the annual music poll ever (and not Sticky Fingers, much to the dismay of Sydney’s Annandale Hotel), with ‘Thrift Shop’ beating out favourites like Tame Impala, Alt-J, Flume, Mumford & Sons, and Frank Ocean.
A winner that was in fact predicted by Nick Drewe and Tom Knox, the two Brisbane-based IT experts that managed to use social media algorithms to crack the Hottest 100 results with fairly accurate results.
The pair’s ‘Warmest 100‘, a chart that used their own analysis of around 35,000 Hottest 100 votes submitted to Triple J via Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, was released in the run-up to the Australia Day countdown, which eventually forecast 92 of the 100 songs on the chart.
The Age reports that in light of the internet chart, the ABC is considering making changes to the Hottest 100 voting system.
The ABC notes that its social media voting system was a ‘huge success’, with 51% of votes for Triple J’s annual music poll being submitted via social media sites, but the broadcaster is looking at making tweaks to next year’s Hottest 100 to prevent outside predictions like the Warmest 100 being launched and potentially spoiling the list.
“With 51 per cent of voters posting their results on social media platforms, it resulted in a huge number of people talking about the Hottest 100 online,” an ABC spokesman tells The Age. “That interaction drove the greatest number of votes yet.”“…we may make a few changes to the system to avoid spoiler attempts in the future though.” – ABC spokesman
“While it 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.”
The Warmest 100 in comparison to the official poll proved to be more accurate the closer it got to the #1 spot, with the Brisbane-based Drewe and Knox accurately predicting all ten songs in the Top 10, and pegging five rankings correctly, including the Top 3 positions with 100% accuracy (better described by this fascinating graph from one AntzPantz, who has put it together for the net’s viewing pleasure).
The pair’s Warmest 100 list also forced bookmakers across the country to suspend betting on the Triple J poll in the week leading up to its broadcast for fears that punters would use the information from the estimated list to skew their betting and profit from large wagers.
Drewe also accurately predicted that ABC and Triple J would find a different method to their public voting system after the coding was cracked by the pair. “We’ll only have one shot at this – Triple j won’t do the same thing twice, letting people freely publish their votes online in such a public manner,” he said.
Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Wanz-featuring novelty single topped the music poll, which featured four songs from Australian artists in the Top 10, with Flume’s ‘Holdin On’ ranking #4, The Rubens’ ‘My Gun’ rounding out at #10, and Tame Impala earning two positions for Lonerism singles ‘Elephant’ and ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ taking out #7 and #9 respectively.
It was also a good year for folk, with Icelandic group Of Monsters And Men taking out the penultimate spot, with ‘Little Talks’ coming in at #2, while Mumford & Sons’ ‘I Will Wait’ sat at #5. The Mercury Prize winning Alt-J took bronze, with ‘Breezeblocks’ at #3, their highest-ranking of three songs in the Hottest 100 (including ‘Something Good’ at #81 & ‘Tesselate’ at #64).
You can view the full list of results from Triple J’s Hottest 100 over at their website.
