Why #tay4hottest100 is good for Triple J
The campaign to get a Taylor Swift song into the Triple J Hottest 100 has created a lot of column inches in recent days. Matt Saraceni argues the controversy is good for the station and how it should capitalise on #tay4hottest100 come Australia Day.
If Taylor Swift places Number one in the Triple J Hottest 100 — I will eat a hat.
Any hat you care to name I will consume it. There is absolutely no way that will happen. I’d bet a nudie run on it. In fact I am.
However, “Shake it Off” appearing in the countdown will be one of the best things to happen to Triple J and its audiences and everybody should be hoping it happens. Let me explain….
A lot has been made lately about Taylor Swift’s potential entry in Hottest 100. This is the largest democratically voted countdown that is traditionally broadcast on Australia Day to barbecues and pool parties all around the country. Because it is audience voted- what if the fan-base of one of the world’s biggest singers invaded the popularity contest and caused the unthinkable to happen.
Disaster! And so, the questions have been rolling in: “Will she earn enough votes to get into the Hottest 100?”
“If she does, should Triple J ever play Taylor Swift?”
“How could the sanctity of the Hottest 100 be allowed to be violated by her?”
“Does *insert corporation here* being involved invalidate her entry?”
Some people argue the divinity of the countdown – “you have everything else, please let real music have this”.
Some argue the inevitable commercial crossover of previous Hottest 100 hits – Kings of Leon, Macklemore and Mumford and Sons all spring to mind.
But everybody agrees that letting the pop princess place anywhere in the one hundred greatest songs of the last year is taking things to a whole new level entirely.
Now, full disclosure, I worked for eight years in the hulking commercial beast that is Nova and loved and hated different parts of the playlist like anyone would.
I too grew up listening to Adam and Wil in the morning and Merrick and Rosso in the afternoon so Triple J holds a very special place in forming my love of radio. In short, I adore Triple J. I have a lot of good friends who work and have worked very hard there.
In the scheme of the radio industry, Triple J holds a very important place. It is a government broadcaster and is therefore not held to the ratings success of their “evil” commercial brothers and sisters.
There is a reason Taylor Swift is played every 30 minutes on a different station- because, by a pure numbers game, people want to hear it. With the odd exception of Perth, commercial stations have to and want to out-rate Triple J. If Triple J was rating number one everywhere – you better believe Short, Fast, Loud would start appearing on night time radio across the country. But, it doesn’t.
It is less listened to than most radio stations, and most would agree “maybe that’s a good thing”. I certainly do – where else will an Australian band get some airplay if it wasn’t for Triple J. 2Day doesn’t have time to break the next Powderfinger when Pitbull is racing up the charts. So yeah, thank fuck for the J’s.
I think of all the many and great things that have come from that stations glorious 40 year history and I wouldn’t dare see it hurt.
Taylor Swift placing in the Hottest 100 does not hurt Triple J at all. If the jangly pop drum beat eminates from the speakers (I predict somewhere between Number 10 and Number 20) it will be a big win for the station and another great moment in its history. Let me explain why…
I have never seen so much chatter about the Hottest 100 in all my experienced years of the countdown. Even the fucking travesty of “Get Lucky” not appearing at #1 (one of the greatest songs of the last 25 years) which garnered some irate attention does not even come close to the amount of newspapers/blogs/Facebook posts that this controversy is attracting. Also, you’ve got to hand it to James Keogh – his ukelele number wasn’t that bad.
Now everybody is talking about the Hottest 100 its role in music history, the responsibility and position of Triple J as a broadcaster and the “will they, won’t they” intrigue to rival a Big Brother promo. And mark my words, everybody will be listening on January 26 to see if and where that song places.
Triple J being listened to by millions for many hours on end – what a dream! Finding a new audience to discover and maybe even love the world’s best radio station – superb! Showing the relevance of Triple J to create a movement in an increasingly digital age – amazing!
Don’t forget there are 99 other songs that this new audience will hear, probably for the first time. If I’m a little known Newcastle band placing at number 82 – I’d love to think that a lot of people are hearing my song because I was lucky and skilful enough to have it appear in this countdown.
For only three and a half minutes of air time given to a pop song – Triple J just won big.
At worst it’s payback for all the times Triple J have attempted to prank the pop-tastic ARIA charts, at best it’s as harmless as the time Adam & Wil garnered enough support to get Salmon Hater in at Number 26. No matter what though, everybody got fired up about a little radio station. Triple J just proved how important it is to our culture and national identity.
So what would I do if I was running Triple J?
First of all, I’d do exactly what they’re doing right now. No comment. The only way to really know the answer is to listen to the countdown.
Second of all, Triple J has some of the brightest, funniest and most talented young announcers and shows I’ve ever heard. Let them talk, poke fun and laugh about the circumstance. It’s what the station has always done best and people will laugh at their jokes because the whole situation is hilariously absurd.
Third, play the song when it appears. Laugh, joke, even interrupt it. Fuck it, summon the best musicians to cover different parts of the song, assemble it in a montage and talk about how amazing Australian music is.
Ask Taylor Swift to rap a verse in the middle about how great Triple J is. She’s pretty funny actually, she might do it.
Who does this hurt? Nobody, everybody wins! Oh, except maybe the person or people who place at Number 101 in the countdown. I guess they lose.
So play their song right after Taylor Swift, apologise to them and make them the hero of the day. Everybody will remember their moment in history too — the day where a pop star entered the greatest countdown the country has ever known.
Matt Saraceni is the head of content at Omny Personal Radio. This post was originally run on Saraceni’s personal blog and has been republished with his permission.
I love JJJ and what is represents but am concerned what it is and what it says it stands for are often different things these days.
I actually think JJJ ha largely moved up the stack from ‘indie’ to ‘smart-arsy’ and while carefully avoiding mainstream artists by focussing only on certain genres is missing a lot of great new music being broken by community stations ala RRR or PBS that have presenters in touch with music at a grass roots level. Outsourcing that to unearthed isn’t really cutting it…its needs curation and play time on core frequencies (non dig).
Basically they are turning into a less-crap less-annoying Nova which is a long way from what the could and used to be. Getting a decent breakfast team who actually know/love music would be a good start (in the absence of any actual humour!).
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If you think thousands of people are going to tune into the countdown just to see if TS is ranked I think you’re in dreamland. They’ve heard the song already, they can just find out on the blogs, Facebook, Twitter (virtually instantly) the moment it happens.
Why would they tune into 8hrs of music the average Nova listener doesn’t like or care about when the alternative is so much more efficient?
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An interesting article from a while back on whether Triple J is actually good for emerging independent Australian artists:
http://polaroidsofandroids.com...../6224.html
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That is a lot of words to state the obvious that Taylor Swift is good PR for Triple J
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@Fraser, true, but they’re well written words. I for one enjoyed reading them even if the take away message was obvious.
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@Fraser
Spot on. Thanks for summarising what’s essentially a fluff piece in one sentence.
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Ha!
I’m loving how pissed off the music snobs are.
“Oh no, our precious Hottest 100”
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Not all PR is good PR – Taylor Swift muddies the water for JJJ (don’t want to see The Hottest 100 become the Logies of radio land)
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Nice work Paddo. Perfectly put.
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Triple J doesn’t need the PR. Being a government funded broadcaster means they don’t have to play the popularity game. Voting for Taylor Swift just to piss people off is pretty rough. The only good thing that could possibly come of her being in the Hottest 100 would be that maybe some listeners from other stations might actually appreciate higher quality music and make the jump
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Completely agree with you Matt!
Such an entertaining and awesome article. Currently sharing it around the office 🙂
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There’s an undercurrent of options to unearth new artists, for example – hype machine, pitchfork, forums, the good old pub – you name it. If you want to find new artists, go and look for yourself. If you want background music and the choice taken out of your hands, fiddle with the FM dial. Triple J will carry on with their background music, the hottest 100 will play in the background for your Australia Day party, Taylor Swift will get played and no new artists are going to be unearthed in the process. No harm done
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People still listen to radio? Who knew? Don’t those awful ads drive them nuts?
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Totally disagree.
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Thank fuck for Triple J is right!
I’m an ol’rocker, you probably don’t know us – we’re the ones that are STILL going to all the music festivals, most of us aged between 45 and 55years old, a couple tip the top of the scale at 66 … and we head to the festivals with our group’ s offspring who range from 18 to 42yrs. The love of Triple J is our unifying thread, our commonality.
We can trust Triple J to do the right thing by us… I hope they don’t give Taylor a second of airtime – she doesn’t need it and Triple J doesn’t need the PR. If people aren’t tuned to the J’s then they’re not into most Aussie music. #Paddo, sometimes the J’s can get a bit too lefty, but they generally find they’re way back. But commercialism rarely finds its way to the sound waves.
If they choose to do any of the humorous things listed above, I hope they do outside of the countdown, during the week or within a funny segment within the show. Triple J is the only bastion of intelligent radio as the ABC and SBS are on TV. There’s a reason why not everyone listens, and I think we like it like that 🙂
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Seriously? The great thing about music is that it is all embracing. The reason you listen to TripleJ is because there are no ads, music is found that is before the curve, and some holistic view of musical taste. If a song for that year is a great song, let it be voted in! Kylie was voted in, Oasis were voted in, even that painful Angus and Julia Stone was voted in. It’s an open forum. Not a secret society.
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Triple J is so overrated – I don’t understand why people enjoy listening to the same song being repeated every hour.
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You used the word “amazing” twice in this article. You are easily amazed my friend.
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“Triple J why are you attempting to reign over us as the singular and somewhat tyrannical champions of music in this country instead of simply fulfilling your role as a government funded broadcaster of unique, original and quality Australian music as per the initial Double J ethos.”
Wow. Not sure what station they are listening to! They are always uncovering and playing new artists. They have whole segments dedicated to this every week! I listen to the J’s. Because I DON’T want to hear the same bubblegum pop played every hour. Or the ads for that matter (oh the irony) Each to their own! That’s just my preference.
That said, they themselves promoted the countdown as a musical democracy. As “the hottest 100 songs voted by you ” for the year. Not the hottest 100 songs played on triple J. There have been many number of instances where songs not played on the J’s have been in the top 100.
I don’t listen to other stations but if the Swizz ends up the 100 that’s fine! It’s about celebrating music as a whole, and that’s pretty cool.
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Nice article, and I think fairly looked at from all sides. This is totally good PR for JJJ – I said it on Facebook about two weeks back also. The radio station is being talked about around the world! Anyway, good stuff; meanwhile who is the “amazing” smart A who has commented at no. 18? Where’s your articles so we can criticise them?
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I hope Tay wins, I also put a lobster on it at $9 so I am somewhat biased.
For the record I had already voted – (New Dorp, New York) Peking duck are probably going to win.
It doesn’t change JJJ as station, Alanis Morrisette had 3 tracks in Hottest 100 (1995) despite only one of them being played on the J’s
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It will sound the death bell if it does….. JJJ has enough issues at present so adding this no talent singer into the mix will not help their cause…publicity does not always translate to good publicity
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Surely the easy way to avoid anyone gaming the Hottest 100 in any year is to make only songs that are actually played by JJJ eligible? And it’s v strange that on a marketing website no one has mentioned the brands of JJJ and the Hottest 100 and the need to maintain their integrity and what makes them the great brands that they are. Personally I’d be sad if Taylor made it to the top tho I love the album. But on a lighter note, this is fun: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jennag......duze4aJqJ
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I’ve always been a bit confused about the hottest 100. It’s not the top played songs on the station like community stations do, or the most popular in voting terms. It’s like the phone in they have at night, they pick out the songs they don’t like.
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