“There’s this joke: the Hottest 100, aka what all the commercial stations are about to start playing. They’re songs that have been around for six to 12 months,” triple j host Zan Rowe told the Anatomy podcast back in January.
Indeed, it’s pretty much accepted at this point that commercial radio regularly pillages the triple j playlist when deciding what will be on rotation for the next 12 months. We’ve seen it happen with Flume, Gotye, and many more.
“We’re not gonna jump on a trend and just play that trend to the detriment of others,” Rowe told Anatomy. “If we’re playing things at the same rotation [as commercial radio], we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“We started playing [Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’] and when we saw that commercial radio was really thumping it, I think a friend of mine at Unearthed said, ‘Yeah, I think ‘Hotline Bling’ has had the full rinse on triple j now.’”
So it’s no surprise that triple j was on the lips of many during yesterday’s ARIA Awards nominations ceremony. Safe to say the likes of Montaigne, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and Violent Soho all owe a great deal to triple j.
But all the praise proved a stick in the craw of Nova radio host Smallzy, who was at the ceremony to reveal the nominations for Album of the Year and Best International Artist. As News Corp notes, he took the opportunity to throw some shade at the j.
“triple j might break them but we make them hits,” he said, which reportedly elicited a “collective groan” from those in attendance. He then told the crowd he’d see them at the Sydney Opera House for the awards ceremony, which it should be noted is held at the Star Event Centre.
All in all, the nominations ceremony was a mixed bag. Sure, you had the likes of Flume and Violent Soho sweeping the nominations, but you also had presenters from R&B station Edge 96.1FM presenting the nominees for Best Country Album.
