The day that Aussie musicians and their fans spend all year waiting for finally arrived yesterday. The annual triple j Hottest 100 blared through speakers around the country as friends and families gathered to celebrate Australia Day.
As we all now know, homegrown rockers The Rubens managed to nab that much-coveted number one spot, beating out the likes of Kendrick Lamar, whom many had pegged as the winner, Major Lazer, and Perth’s favourite sons, Tame Impala.
With the full results of the latest Hottest 100 now in and with the help of the number crunchers at triple j, we’ve decided to break down this year’s poll and have a look at what interesting factoids it holds and what it reveals about the current state of the Aussie music scene.
1. Not The Best Year For Female Representation
Whilst 37 of the songs that made it into the countdown had female vocals, including 33 songs with lead female vocals and four with female and male vocals, this year marked the first time since 2012 that no female solo artist or female-fronted band made it into the top 10.
2. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!
This is the third consecutive year that an Australian act has been voted into number one on the countdown and a massive 54 percent of the songs in this year’s Hottest 100 are from homegrown artists, once again proving that Aussie music is in the best place its been in years.
3. The Overachievers
Courtney Barnett and Tame Impala share the podium as the artists with the most songs in the countdown. Both the Perth-bred psychedelic rockers and the Melbourne-based wordplay queen managed to send a total of four songs into the countdown.
4. Winning Streak
Australia’s electronic golden boy Flume is on quite a roll, having appeared in four consecutive countdowns. However, the king of the Hottest 100 streak is Illy, who made it into the Hottest 100 for the seventh year in a row.
5. The Club’s Most Improved
Whilst he just missed out on that highly coveted number one spot, Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar get the trophy for being this year’s most improved, having jumped from #53 in 2014 with ‘i’, to number two with ‘King Kunta’.
6. triple j Unearthed Artists Are Killing It
If you needed any more proof that triple j Unearthed is a hotbed for homegrown musical talent, 30 of the songs featured in this year’s countdown are from artists we first heard on Unearthed and 14 are from eight previous J Award winners.
7. This Year Featured Lots Of Features
This year’s Hottest 100 was a celebration of friendship, teamwork, and collaboration – 24 songs had featured artists appearing. Meanwhile, the song with the most features was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ ‘Downtown’, which included four guests.
8. Keeping Things Short And Sweet
It’s 2016 and things are go, go, go. Not only do we like our music fast, with the average BPM of the Hottest 100 clocking in at 123, the average duration of a Hottest 100 song this year was 2:49mins, keeping things short and sweet.
9. Uniting The Globe
A total of 10 countries were represented in the countdown, with 54 songs from Australia, 22 from the UK, 15 from the USA, five from Canada, and one each from Denmark, France, Germany, and New Zealand, with featured artists hailing from Jamaica and Sweden.
10. Animal Names Are Back!
Back in 2010, the Hottest 100 featured just 17 songs by animal acts, a number that dropped to a dismally low five for last year’s poll. But animal names are back in a big way with 12 acts featuring animal-inspired names, including Boy & Bear, Tame Impala, Peking Duk, and DJ Snake.
