As the debate over Beyonce’s addition to triple j rotation continues to rage (or drone, depending on who you speak to), one of the biggest sticking points of the anti-Bey mob has been the inherent contradiction of banning Taylor Swift from the Hottest 100 but giving Beyonce the thumbs up.

They argue that allowing Beyonce on their airwaves undermines their conviction concerning Swift, since both artists are multimillionaire pop superstars with equal amounts of commercial (and arguably critical) clout and neither needs the support of a youth-oriented ‘alternative’ station.

The reaction from some fans even prompted station presenter Zan Rowe to defend the broadcaster’s decision to showcase the album. “If you haven’t seen or heard Lemonade in full and are slamming it, then nope. That’s just ignorant,” she wrote on Twitter last week.

As Tone Deaf noted, the addition of Beyonce’s latest album, the critically acclaimed Lemonade, to triple j rotation as an album packet has sparked a debate over just what kind of pop music is considered ‘appropriate’ for triple j, both by listeners and station higher-ups.

Pop artists beloved by triple j, such as Beyonce, Kanye West, Sia, The Weeknd, and Drake, are not your average pop stars in that they bear a considerable degree of artistic respectability and critical opinion, but one could argue the same for Swift’s recent output.

Still, Swift was outright banned by triple j brass from inclusion in the Hottest 100 due to the #Tay4Hottest100 campaign’s association with BuzzFeed, who first launched it, and KFC, who exploited it for social media attention, whilst Sia and Drake et al placed high in respective Hottest 100s.

Well, it was only a matter of time, but triple j listeners are already plotting a #Bey4Hottest100 campaign, hoping to send the superstar diva into the top spot of the world’s biggest fan-voted music poll, and this time the artist already has the triple j tick of approval.

“I plan to start a major campaign when Triple J Hottest 100 voting opens to get Beyonce to number 1,” Twitter user Gabs wrote, one of a growing number of triple j listeners who want to see the diva dominate the beloved staple of the Australian summer calendar.

Beyonce actually has a good chance of winning if a #Bey4Hottest100 campaign really got off the ground. She boasts 14.3 million Twitter followers, known colloquially as the Beyhive, who’ve been known to be militant when it comes to defending and promoting their queen bee.

As The Guardian recently wrote, the Beyhive flexed their social media muscle for the entire world in the days following Lemonade‘s release. The outlet noted how the hive’s cyber-shaming of Jay-Z’s alleged mistress was “the latest in a long line of vendettas executed by obsessive pop star fans”.

With such an army at her command, all it would take is a single tweet from Beyonce to tip the Hottest 100 scales in her favour. And no, you don’t have to be Australian to vote in the Hottest 100. According to triple j’s own figures, this year’s countdown tallied votes from 172 countries.

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What’s more, there’s actually a good, unspoken reason to vote for Beyonce in the Hottest 100. As Gabs noted on Twitter, if the Beyhive voted their queen into the top spot of the Hottest 100, she would not only be the first woman of colour to top the poll, but the first woman period.

Meanwhile, whilst 37 of the songs that made it into last year’s countdown had female vocals, including 33 songs with lead female vocals and four with female and male vocals, it marked the first time since 2012 that no female solo artist or female-fronted band made it into the top 10.

Of course, debate will no doubt rage about whether it’s fair for a pop star to have a golden staircase to the top of the Hottest 100 built for her by her millions of social media followers. After all, BuzzFeeed have a mere three million Twitter followers.

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