Wondering where the votes for your favourite song went in the stampede to crown Macklemore & Ryan Lewis in Triple J’s Hottest 100? Thought the list was missing some Cat Power, Kingswood, Japandroids, or Courtney Barnett? Or maybe one of the three Alt-J songs that featured in the annual music poll wasn’t your favourite.
Whatever the case, Aussie music fans have another top 100 countdown to look forward to this weekend.
As Triple J News reports, the national youth radio station will be broadcasting the Hottest 200 this weekend from 10am (AEST), counting down the tracks that missed out on a place in the Australia Day music poll, broadcasting all the tunes that ranked from 200 to 101.
In the last few years, the station has generally published the 101-200 results in the week or so following the official Hottest 100, but this is the first time that the rankings from 200 to 101 will get an airing on the station.
Why the decision to officially air the bottom rankings of the list? It’s pure speculation, but it may be a way of treating some of the perceived backlash over the Hottest 100. Some factions were disgruntled that much of the list was given over to remixes, ‘indie-fied’ club music, and electropop fads, in a list that’s typically dominated by rock and alternative music – or at least perceived to be.
Others were unhappy with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ ‘Thrift Shop’ taking out the top spot, the first time a hip hop song has achieved such a feat in the Hottest 100’s nearly 30 year history (but not the first time a novelty tune has, here’s looking at you ‘Pretty Fly For A White Guy’).
As always, there were many big name favourites that missed out on reaching the Hottest 100, which will also be replayed on air this Sunday from 10am (AEST) following the 101-200 airing on Saturday. The likes of Grizzly Bear, Cat Power, Japandroids were all notably absent from the list in a year where they all had strong album releases.Others were unhappy with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ ‘Thrift Shop’ taking out the top spot, the first time a hip hop song has achieved such a feat in the Hottest 100’s nearly 30 year history.
Even many Triple J Unearthed favourites failed to make a showing in the Top 100, including many of the digital radio station’s Top 50 most played artists of 2012. Though there were a handful on Unearthed entrants (Asta, Chance Waters, Sticky Fingers etc.) and successful ‘graduates’ (The Rubens, San Cisco, Loon Lake, Ball Park Music), there was still some glaring omissions like Kingswood, Courtney Barnett, and Collarbones.
Of course, a popularity vote is always going to polarise and cause some dissent for the general public, bu perhaps the Hottest 200 will go some ways to validate the tastes of those dissatisfied with the ‘official’ list.
There won’t however be a ‘Warmest 200’ from Nick Drewe and Tom Knox, the two young Brisbane-based IT experts that managed to use social media algorithms to crack the Hottest 100 results, accurately predicting 92 of the 100 songs on the chart.
The pair analysed around 35,000 Hottest 100 votes submitted to Triple J via Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to create the ‘Warmest 100‘, with the chart’s predictions becoming more accurate the closer it got to the #1 spot, and the Brisbane duo’s stats nailed five rankings in the Top 10 correctly, including the Top 3 positions (as this handy graph demonstrates).
Speaking to FasterLouder, Nick Drewe says that there won’t be a ‘Warmest 200’ in the lead-up to the broadcast, because, “as we all saw on Saturday[‘s Hottest 100], the data is a lot more inaccurate down that end of the list… We might do a comparison of the lists after the 101-200 has aired on the weekend, but we won’t be putting anything out before.”
The Brisbane duo accurately predicted the winner of the poll to be Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ Wanz-featuring’Thrift Shop’, the first time a hip hop song has topped the poll in its nearly 30 year history.
The pair’s ability to analyse the social media votes is something that the ABC has acknowledged may influence their decision to change the voting process, with a spokesman saying that 51% of the votes for Triple J’s Hottest 100 were submitted via social media, “that interaction drove the greatest number of votes yet.”
“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,” said the ABC representative. “We may make a few changes to the system to avoid spoiler attempts in the future though.”
You can view the full list of results from Triple J’s Hottest 100 over at their website.
