My Triple J Hottest 10 for 2012

Triple J’s Hottest 100 is an icon of the Australian music landscape. Every year on Australia Day, tens of thousands of people will gather around barbeques in backyards all around the country and tune in to 107.5 on their FM dial to hear what they and their fellow music fans have voted in as the best songs of the year. Unfortunately (not really that unfortunate), this year I won’t be tuning into the countdown as I’ll be at another Australia Day stalwart; the Big Day Out, listening live to many of the artists who are sure to be featured on the Triple J list.

Below I’ve compiled my Top 10 songs of the year. These are the 10 tracks which I voted for and would like to see represented in the final cut - the songs which personally for me, had the greatest impact on my past 12 months. Now there are many ways to put together your Top 10. Some do it based on their favourite artists, some on quality of production, some on which songs they liked to dance to; the brilliant thing is there’s no set formula to best judge your Top 10 – it’s what works for you. Now my list is bought about by a few restrictions and criteria which I attempted to place on myself:

• Only songs from the Triple J shortlist 
• No two songs from the same artist 
• Songs within a mix of genres (although my favourites are pretty evidently Hip-Hop and EDM) 
• Songs which I have some personal connection to 
• Songs that while not necessarily being commercially popular or the biggest “singles” from the artist, are songs that I think deserve recognition, and 
• Songs that are somewhat ground-breaking.

2012 was a huge year in music with so, so much talent! I encourage each of you to head over to the Triple J Hottest 100 website, download the shortlist, get listening and get voting. I guarantee you will find something that blows your mind. Here is my list. Enjoy it. Debate it. Critique it. Please let me know your thoughts; whether I’m right or completely wrong. What is beautiful is that no-one list is perfect – well not at least until we hear the final countdown on January 26!

I’ve included a brief reasoning behind why I have selected each song, provided a link for you to check out the YouTube clip and I’ve also included a few honourable mentions to artists who just missed the cut.

Get Listening! Happy Hottest 100!

Honourable Mentions:                                                                                                                           

San Cisco (Wild Things), Rudimental (Feel the Love), Plan B (The entire Ill Manors Soundtrack), TNGHT (Higher Ground), Flume (His entire self-titled debut Album) The XX (Angels), Lisa Mitchell (Spiritus & The Story Of The Raven And The Mushroom Man ),  Miike Snow (The Wave), Allday x C1 (So Good), Kanye West + Good Music (Clique & Mercy).

10. Knife Party – Centipede

2012 will forever be marked as the year I fell in love with dubstep. Living in London, the home of bass music, and clubbing every Friday Night at FabricLive made it pretty difficult not to, and thus, I had to include a dubstep track in my Top 10. Surprisingly though, it’s not someone from the UK (Rusko wasn’t on the shortlist despite Songs being an incredible album) or the commercially popular American, Skrillex, who feature in my list. It’s some Australians. Knife Party. Made up of two members from Pendulum, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, Knife Party have produced an absolute banger with this track which provides one of the  hardest drops you will ever hear. Centipede, from the Rage Valley EP, is everything you want from a bass track; the slow documentary style intro, the general climax and then a face-melting drop complete with huge synth and bass sounds. While mostly known for their 2011 track Antidote with Swedish House Mafia, Knife Party are making moves and are on the rise - I can’t wait for their Live EP which is being recorded at a gig at Sydney Opera House on February 1^st this year.

9. Hilltop Hoods – The Underground (ft. Classified and Solo)

Hilltop Hoods have done it all. Four appearances in the Hottest 100 Top 10 in 2003, ’06, ’09, ’11 and I can almost guarantee they will get another in this year. Though I doubt it will be this track. Last January, as a teaser on Facebook, the 'Hoods' posted a status saying: "Let's have some fun. If we get 5000 likes on this post we're going to leak a track off Drinking from the Sun”. Within 10 minutes 7,500 fans had liked the post and thus they dropped Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom. I anticipate either that or Shredding The Balloon will make this year’s Top 10, but to be fair you could pretty much pick anything from their third number-one Australian album - I’ve gone with The Underground. This autobiographical track tells the tale of Suffa, Pressure and Debris rising through the ranks of the Australian Hip-Hop underground to achieve greatness. Somewhat antagonistic to those in the modern day Hip-Hop scene “now every assed bar fly up in the bar rhymes”, The Underground works because of its’ authenticity by a group who really do know the hard times. This could yet be their biggest legacy to Aussie Hip-Hop.

8. Major Lazer – Get Free (ft. Amber Coffman)

Diplo is on another planet. At present, in my opinion, he is one of the Top 5 DJs and Producers in the world – I was lucky enough to catch him live in December. After Switch, one half of Major Lazer, left in 2011 citing ‘creative differences’ with Diplo, questions were asked as to whether Diplo could keep Major Lazer alive by himself. He responded with Get Free which reached #13 on the UK Dance charts and peaked at #56 locally on the ARIA charts. This song is hard to put into words, simply you just have to hear it to know what I’m on about. The chilling vocals by Amber Coffman from Dirty Projects are perfectly mixed with a comfortable, repetitive, somewhat hypnotic melody. You can listen to this thing on loop for hours. I highly recommend checking out the Animated Lyric Video too for some terrific artwork. 

7. Thundamentals – Brother (ft. Ev Jones) [Like A Version]

While some may question the legitimacy of a Like A Version track in Triple J’s Top 10 rather than an original production – this one has definitely earned its spot. This is the most popular Like A Version ever released, racking up over 500,000 views on YouTube. Once you check it out you will understand why. I’ll be honest here. And controversial. I prefer it to the original. Which is saying something because Matt Corby’s Brother is sublime and ranked #3 in the 2011 list. When I was living in a small flat in East London, my housemates and I would play this track non-stop and roam around the place imitating the crisp Corby sample as we recited the Thundamental’s tale of meeting a lover, “once upon a summertime.” The breakdown section is something to behold, with a beautiful mix of spoken word and harmonic vocals by Ev Jones. This may just be the Sydney Hip-Hop collective’s biggest moment and set them on a new path to stardom, beginning with this year’s Hottest 100 list.

6. Disclosure – Latch (ft. Sam Smith)

I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it. In the car, on Triple J. I had never heard of Disclosure before this song and it’s so damn good that it has kept Flume out of my Top 10. The British Duo comprised of Surrey locals, the Lawrence brothers, racked up over 1 million SoundCloud listens with this beauty and achieved #11 on the UK Singles Chart. It’s a catchy, boppy, electro tune with terrific vocals provided by Sam Smith; another one you will play repeatedly. After supporting SBTRKT and Hot Chip on tour in 2012, Disclosure will drop their debut album in March; and if Latch is anything to go by, it will be one of the releases of the year.    

5. Seth Sentry – Float Away

Seth Sentry has been promising his debut album for years. The self-confessed stoner, video-game addict and all round lazy bloke said it would be worth the wait; and he didn’t lie. This Was Tomorrow was my favourite Australian Album of 2012, as well as many other peoples, which resulted in him winning Channel [V]’s Artist of the Year. After having the highly popular The Waitress Song reach #31 in the 2009 count, Sentry set to work on his debut album, carefully crafting his intricate, witty lyricism which produced songs such as Dear Science and My Scene - now regulars on airwaves. I could have picked either of those tracks in my Top 10 but instead I went with Float Away; another cheeky, humorous and yet nostalgic piece of work which shows off his highly clever array of lyrical skill. The song’s catchphrase “Don’t be upset, but I really didn’t hear a f*****g word that you just said”, just about sums up Seth, who is portrayed hilariously in the 1970’s style film clip directed by Grey Ghost.  No longer in the shadow of his good mates Pez and 360, Seth Sentry is a storyteller who is extremely funny, relatable and genuine – what you see is what you get and Float Away is a prime example.  

4. Frank Ocean – Thinkin’ Bout You

Frank Ocean is just about my artist of the year for 2012, and not far off being the most talented artist in the world today. The member of Hip-Hop collective OFWGKTA has always stood out from the group and his debut album Channel Orange depicts exactly why. Grammy nominated as Album of the Year. Four Stars from Rolling Stone. Five from The Guardian. It debuted at Number 2 on the Billboard charts and Frank Ocean sold out his 14 stop US tour in days. While I had already fallen in love with his 2011 EP Nostalgia, Ultra, much of the hype of Channel Orange surrounded the fact that Ocean used it as a platform to publicly announce his sexuality - one of the first major African-American artists to announce their same-sex attraction; a theme he explores throughout the album. Regardless, the album is sublime. Tracks Pink Matter, Super Rich Kids and Crack Rock are some of my favourites, but in the end I picked Thinkin’ Bout You; Ocean’s highest charting single which not only displays his unbelievable vocal ability (his falsetto is something else) but also his awe-inspiring penmanship. Having written tracks for Jay-Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne, Ocean is a mould similar to R Kelly in the 90’s, but at merely 25 I anticipate he will surpass those heights with ease and dominate the world of Hip-Hop and R&B over the next two decades.

      

3. Kendrick Lamar – Backstreet Freestyle

I’ve written previously about the goliath figure in the rap world today that is Kendrick Lamar. So I won’t elaborate too much, but good kid, M.A.A.D city was my Album of the Year for 2012 and Kendrick Lamar’s show was close to my favourite gig of the year. I was always going to include something from Kendrick in my Top 10, but after seeing him tear the roof of the Palace Theatre in December with Backstreet Freestyle, my choice became an easy one. This is a Hip-Hop anthem which will be played around the globe for years. Produced by the ever impressive Hit-Boy, this track is massive, with Kendrick shouting details of his “Dreeeeeeam!” and announcing his arrival. With the video only dropping in the last week, Backstreet Freestyle has not yet been released as a single, but is planned for release this year. Mark my words. If you haven’t heard it yet; you will, A lot. It will be huge. Check out my previous post for a review on Kendrick Lamar’s Melbourne show and a bit more background on just how good this guy is.  

2. Macklemore x Ryan Lewis – Same Love (ft. Mary Lambert)

I cried when I first heard this song. Simply put; it’s beautiful. While Thrift Shop is the song that has finally bought Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to the public eye (and the song I expect to top the Top 100); Same Love is the track that helped bring about marriage reform in the state of Washington and may just change the way homosexuality is viewed in Hip-Hop, and in society in general. The Heist has bought Ben Haggerty and Ryan Lewis the attention they have long deserved. The rapper and producer duo are two of the most talented artists in the world, continually pouring their heart out on each track with the intention of their music leaving a footprint and making a difference to the world around them. I’ll say it again, everything about Same Love is beautiful. From the gentle piano introduction, to the heart-wrenching film clip, to the bold statements of Haggerty revealing “When I was in the third grade, I thought that I was gay.” This raw, emotive, though-provoking song is exactly what music is about – influencing culture. The second verse which speaks strongly against homophobia in hip-hop; “If I was gay, I would think Hip-Hop hates me. Have you read the YouTube comments lately?” has caused many an artist to stop and think about their attitude to others in the industry. Combined with Channel Orange, Same Love may just bring about a revolution in the typically close-minded, critical, homophobic Hip-Hop scene. Here’s hoping.   

1. Porter Robinson – Language

It takes something pretty special to keep Same Love from the number one spot, but have no doubt, Porter Robinson is something special. Language hypnotises and captivates in the same manner that Robert Miles’ global hit Children did back in the 1990’s. Porter Robinson was a mere 3 years old at the time. Reaching #3 on the UK Dance charts, Language is an epic 6 minute journey that if it were not for Swedish House Mafia's final single Don’t You Worry Child, would be globally recognised as the best EDM track of 2012. Having performed alongside Tiesto, Skrillex and Deadmau5 in 2012, Porter released his Essential Mix on Pete Tong’s BBC Radio 1 program last January to critical acclaim from DJs worldwide. I had the fortune of seeing him play a set at Stereosonic in December and it left me breathless. Porter Robinson. Remember the name.  The 20 year old from North Carolina, who is not old enough to drink in a majority of the venues he plays in, will be the next big thing in Electronic Dance Music.