Watching the Numbers Trickle Past

The JJJ Hottest 100 2010

Well it’s Australia Day, and I’m slaving away in the office. This sounds bad, but I actually decided to take Monday off instead and come in today and get a good slab of work done without distractions. Well, apart from the Triple J Hottest 100 anyway.

They’re up to number 88 and so far I’m not too impressed. Of course this could very well mean that all the really good songs have come in in the low numbers, which would be great, but we’ll see.

Only one song I voted for has come in so far, the Bedroom Philosopher at number 91. I’ll update the post as the results continue to trickle in…

Hmmm, according to the Wikipedia page we should all “seriously get to Jimmy’s” in Victoria Street in Brunswick, Melbourne. It also informs us that Jimmy is “a knob jockey”, although someone else thinks this is “unnecessary slander”. Fascinating…

Megan Washington at 84? I thought she’d get much higher…

Number 82. This is the music you tighten up to!…

Number 76. Ah, so that Kings of Leon song is named Radioactive. No wonder it makes me nauseous…

Ah Rosie Beaton! My long-time radio crush! Yey! đŸ™‚

Number 74: I’ve always wondered what would happen if you put Tame Impala in a room with Leader Cheetah…

Number 71: Gypsy and the Cat have now popped up twice. No Jona Vark yet though…

Number 64: Ah! There it is. Should have got much higher if you ask me…

You know, there have been no songs yet that I really really hate? Interesting…

Number 56: Bring Night only got 56? What’s wrong with you people?!…

Ambling Alp at number 51. That takes the total-so-far of songs I voted for to 4…

Number 42: Gorillaz! Yey! (there were also at 78, just for the record)…

Number 36: Chiddy Bang! And they’re pretty much amazing!…

Number 31: Bloodbuzz Ohio by the National. So much for no songs I hate…

Did I mention that my prediction for number one is Cee Lo Green?..

Number 22: The counter-curse is “Unjellify”…

Number 15: Never thought I’d see the day that Barbara Streisand got into the Hottest 100. Well, live and learn…

Number 11:I also never thought the ABC News Theme would get a look in. Awesome!!…

Number 10: And now Boy George. Curiouser and curiouser…

Number 7: SEVEN!? Cee Lo only got number SEVEN!? Wow! Wonder what piece of crap took number one then?..

Number 5: Crowded House at five. Sort of :)…

Number 3: Ou Est Le Swimming Pool. It’s a great song, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s ranked so high due to sympathy votes…

And Number One….. Big Jet Plane by Angus and Julia Stone. Well, I certainly didn’t see that coming. But then it did win song of the year at the ARIAs, so I suppose it’s not that surprising.

OK, I’m out of here. More nuanced analysis will appear later (maybe :D)

Make Mine Music

Too much musical information.

Well it’s that time of year again, the voting has opened for the Triple J Hottest 100. Naturally I’ve jumped straight in and voted for my favourite 10 songs of the last year and shall present them here for the ridicule of all – but before I do I have to comment on the website they’ve thrown together to take the votes.

I ain’t impressed.

OK, I’ll qualify that. Overall the site is good, but it has a couple of critical bugs that made my voting a bit of a trial.

(For the record I’m using Firefox version 3.6.13)

Firstly, they appear to be using AJAX to add songs to the shortlist. This is fine – except they appear to be using the same XMLHttpRequest object each time you click a song, rather than spawning a new one.

What this means is that if you click to select a song, then click on another song before the result of the first click has been returned, the first click is effectively cancelled, and only the second song is added to the list. So you need to click, wait, click, wait, and so on, which kind of defeats the purpose of using AJAX in the first place.

The second bug is on the submission form you go to once your songs have been selected. I use an extension called CookieSafe to control the cookies on my machine. This allows me to block or modify cookies on a site-by-site basis. On the Triple J site I allow cookies, but have them all rewritten to be session only (ie: they evaporate when I close the browser).

Voting for the hottest 100 appears to require a long term cookie to be set – which is fair enough, I guess they’re using it to stop people voting multiple times. If this cookie is tampered with (or blocked) the form won’t submit. Also fair enough. But – what does the form tell you if this situation occurs?

It tells you that you haven’t filled out all of the fields.

Even when you have.

That’s bad. Really bad. An inappropriate error message is worse than no error message at all. I’m net savvy enough to figure out what’s going on and adjust my cookie settings appropriately, but plenty of other people aren’t, and could easily get so frustrated that they’d give up on voting altogether.

So, the ABC’s web department seriously needs to raise their game.

But, on to the fun stuff. The songs.

Whittling down my list to just 10 songs was a real challenge this year, especially once I realised that I was forgetting a bunch of really good tracks. But I laboured mightily and ended up with the following list, which I present in no particular order (apart from alphabetically by artist).

(Note: Helen and Ali, a bunch of these songs are on a mix-cd that shall shortly be winging your ways, so if you want to be surprised, stop reading – or at least clicking “play”- from this point on :))

The Bedroom Philosopher – Northcote (So Hungover)

The puntastic tale of a pretentious Emo riding around on the number 86 tram. I particularly like the concept of Sad Sanderson performing at the Fitzroy Anti-Social Club.

Cee Lo Green – Fuck You!

I don’t mind profanity in a song, as long as it serves a purpose. In this case the purpose is to form an integral part of a seamless, catchy, funky, brilliant motown track consummately performed by Mr Green. This is my confident tip for the number one spot. Those who find the lyrics offensive may prefer this bowdlerised version performed by the cast of Glee and (for some reason) Gwyneth Paltrow.

Chiddy Bang – The Opposite of Adults

A remix/reworking of MGMT’s Kids. And what a remix/reworking. Just as good as the original, although wildly different.

Grinderman – Palaces Of Montezuma

Ah, Nick Cave! Scary, growly Nick Cave who can make a song about JFK’s spinal cord sound like a visitation from the heavens. OK, it’s not exclusively about JFK’s spinal cord, but believe me, it’s in there, and it’s romantic as all get out.

Gypsy and the Cat – Jona Vark

Gypsy and the Cat were discovered by Triple J Unearthed, and you can just imagine them sitting around giggling saying “we’ll call our song Jona Vark, and everyone will think it’s Joan of Arc, and get all confused! Hurrah”. Normally this kind of tomfoolery would condemn one to a life of complete obscurity, but Gypsy and the Cat seemed to have made it work.

Kate Nash – Do Wah Doo

A few years ago I listed one of Kate Nash’s songs as the worst of the year. Possibly she heard about it, because she’s now come up with a 50’s inspired track that I’m totally in love with. It sounds like something put together by Phil Spector before he went mad and started killing people. Fantastic.

Marina and the Diamonds – Shampain

How to describe Shampain. Like falling into the pit of hell accompanied by a herd of rabid synthesizers? Perhaps, except that it’s awesome.

Philadelphia Grand Jury – Save Our Town

Some good, old fashioned Aussie rock/pop, without which no Hottest 100 list would be complete. Put your money down people!

Sia – Bring Night

Catchy and astronomically accurate! If you travel in the direction of your shadow the sun will go down a little sooner.

Yeasayer – Ambling Alp

A song about boxers from the 1930s. Or something. Certainly they get mentioned in there. I don’t really know, or really care, because it’s energetic, catchy, fun and puts the boot into fascists.

So that’s my ten. Here’s some others that only just missed out on making the cut…

So there we go. Roll on Australia Day!

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