20 Years, 100 Songs...

Triple J's Hottest 100 of the past 20 years has been counted down to numero uno, with Oasis' 'Wonderwall' taking the top spot. The cheers of anti-'Thrift Shop' punters could be heard around Australia, or more specifically in my bedroom, as the realisation that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis failed to place AT ALL hit home. Australian acts made up just over a quarter of the list, but female artists found themselves severely underrepresented. No PJ Harvey, Bjork or Courtney Love to be seen. But 'Thrift Shop' didn't make the list, so it does have that going for it. What else did we learn, let's see... well, The Killers remain surprisingly relevant, while former Hottest 100 #1 artists Denis Leary and Alex Lloyd do not. And did I mention 'Thrift Shop' didn't make the list? Well it didn't and we all lived happily ever after.


I attempted to do up a list last month in preparation for voting in this Hottest 100 and now, I share it with you. Culling down to 100 of my favourite songs over the past two decades and then only being able to pick twenty was quite a hard thing to do. To not venture into crazy personal choice territory too much, I tried to limit myself to tracks that had featured in the previous Hottest 100's as much as possible. There were only five exceptions to this rule (I think). This list will be by no means perfect to some/everyone (duh!), but if the J's Hottest 100 of the past 20 years told us anything, no list is. But it comes close if it doesn't have 'Thrift Shop' in it. Enjoy!

20 Years, 100 Songs...

by Matt Bond

1. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps (Didn't Make the Hottest 100)
3. Foo Fighters - Everlong
4. Powderfinger - My Kind of Scene (Didn't Make the Hottest 100)
5. Oasis - Wonderwall
6. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
7. Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing) (Didn't Make the Hottest 100)
8. The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
9. Bjork - Hyperballad
10. Blur - Song 2
11. System of A Down - Chop Suey
12. Massive Attack - Teardrop
13. The Prodigy - Breathe
14. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - The Ship Song
15. Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains
16. Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros - Home
17. Radiohead - Creep
18. Gotye ft. Kimbra - Somebody That I Used To Know
19. The Cranberries - Zombie
20. The Avalanches - Since I Left You
21. Garbage - Vow
22. Killing Heidi - Weir
23. PJ Harvey - Rid Of Me (Didn't Make The Hottest 100)
24. The Waifs - London Still
25. Pearl Jam - Given To Fly
26. Missy Elliott - Work It
27. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
28. Silverchair - Miss You Love
29. Spiderbait - Buy Me A Pony
30. Hole - Violet
31. Tame Impala - Elephant
32. The xx - Angels
33. M.I.A - Paper Planes
34. Crystal Fighters - At Home (Didn't Make The Hottest 100)
35. Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood
36. Seeker Lover Keeper - Even Though I'm A Woman
37. Kimbra - Cameo Lover
38. Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith - Not In Love
39. Kanye West ft. Pusha-T - Runaway
40. Pearl Jam - Better Man
41. Rage Against the Machine - Killing In The Name
42. Kylie Minogue - Confide In Me
43. Silverchair - Tomorrow
44. Ben Folds Five - Brick
45. Powderfinger - These Days
46. Augie March - One Crowded Hour
47. Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl
48. Garbage - Push It
49. OutKast - Hey Ya!
50. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor
51. The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
52. Bjork - Human Behaviour
53. Queens of the Stone Age - No One Knows
54. Placebo - Every You Every Me
55. Nine Inch Nails - Closer
56. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
57. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
58. Custard - Girls Like That (Don't Go For Guys Like Us)
59. No Doubt - Just A Girl
60. The Killers - When You Were Young
61. The Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight
62. Spiderbait - Calypso
63. Garbage - #1 Crush
64. Fuel - Shimmer
65. Killing Heidi - Mascara
66. The Dresden Dolls - Coin-Operated Boy
67. Hole - Celebrity Skin
68. Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun
69. Portishead - Glory Box
70. Bush - Glycerine
71. The Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
72. Ben Lee - Cigarettes Will Kill You
73. Grinspoon - Chemical Heart
74. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
75. Silverchair - Freak
76. Hilltop Hoods - The Nosebleed Section
77. Presidents of the USA - Lump
78. The Cure - Friday I'm In Love
79. Sia - Breathe Me
80. Regina Spektor - On The Radio
81. The Presets - Talk Like That
82. The Grates - Science Is Golden
83. The Offspring - Self Esteem
84. Muse - Time Is Running Out
85. The Presets - My People
86. MGMT - Kids
87. Art Vs Science - Parlez Vous Francais
88. Florence + The Machine - Dog Days Are Over
89. The Superjesus - Down Again
90. Nirvana - Heart-Shaped Box
91. Bloc Party - Hunting For Witches
92. Frenzal Rhomb - Never Had So Much Fun
93. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
94. Bjork - It's Oh So Quiet
95. The Whitlams - No Aphrodisiac
96. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds ft. Kylie Minogue - Where The Wild Roses Grow
97. Custard - Apartment
98. Magic Dirt - Dirty Jeans
99. The Smashing Pumpkins - Today
100. Veruca Salt - Seether

It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Blur

BLUR
by Jo Michelmore


It seems appropriate after writing about Oasis last week, we feature the anti-Oasis this week; Blur. You see, music in the UK in the ‘90’s was interesting and hilarious, for many reasons, as it so often is, but in the ‘90’s it was all about the Britpop and mostly, the Oasis vs. the Blur. Although it’s probably not close to reality, I do like to have visions of the little members of Blur and the fellas of Oasis sitting in a conservatory on a sunny day having cups of tea and intellectual discussions about something…intellectual, laughing about what fun they had back in the day. This is probably not the case, maybe they did hate each other and would just throw the scalding tea at each other, which would also be slightly amusing, but I do suspect both bands had amazing marketing teams and feeding off each other’s incredible success fuelled the sales. Oh how the Oasis vs. Blur fight provided much entertainment for a little while.

Blur were awesome for five minutes or so there. Ok, that’s unfair. Like Oasis, they were awesome for a large chunk of the ‘90’s. Emerging from generic London, Blur were part of the British reaction to what was happening in the US at the time, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, you know the names, etc.etc. Blur were poster boys of the Britpop sound and they were fun. Heaps of fun. Although they released their debut album in 1991 and then faced a bit of a backlash and drama with their second album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ in 1993 (personally one of my favourite album titles of all time), it wasn’t until ‘Parklife’ in ‘94 that things got really good. They had a sound that was dance pop and mod rock and punk pop and a teeny, tiny bit grungy and just a whole bunch of great. It was essentially just a simple look at the average, of English life at its most boring and its best.

The first song on ‘Parklife’ was ‘Girls And Boys’ and is still some of British pop music’s finest. “Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they’re girls who do girls like they’re boys” are some of the best lyrics of the era (and also some of the most difficult to remember and sing along to, try them at karaoke after a few beverages and get back to me). It was such a great song even the low-budget-super-bad film clip didn’t matter; it became an anthem for millions of fans all over the world. Although Damon Albarn was clearly the pretty boy face of Blur, Graham Coxon, the guitarist, was one of the best Britain had to offer at the time and yet completely underrated, he was the type of musician I kind of love; suspicious of the general mass media and music industry, quiet and unfortunately alcoholic, it was his riffs that made some of Blur’s songs as catchy as they were. The title track ‘Parklife’ was the other single that helped propel Blur into the realm of superstardom. The clip was awesome, the opposite to the dodgy ‘Girls And Boys’ clip, it was humorous and incredibly witty and it really was a celebration of the mundane, a satire of English suburbia, spoken verses and a catchy chorus. It was the one you wanted to see live and sway along with the crowd to. You could dance to it, you could bounce to it, you could relate to it.

They followed up with their next album reasonably quickly, ‘The Great Escape’ released in late ‘95. This was where things got good in the Oasis/Blur battle. Both bands decided to release singles on the same day; Blur releasing ‘Country House’ and Oasis releasing ‘Roll With It’. Blur won this little battle for sales in the UK at least, with ‘Country House’ outselling Oasis and becoming Blur’s first UK number one, but I kind of think Oasis won the comedic word war with Damon saying “….Oasis are very nice boys” but Liam Gallagher quoted as saying “…my left testicle has more charisma than Damon”. Good one Liam. (It has to be said Oasis won the sales war this time though, their album ‘Morning Glory’ outselling ‘The Great Escape’ and rightly so in my humble opinion, it was a better album.) Besides all of that, Blur were making pure Britpop at its very best. Almost paying tribute to a 60’s mod sound ‘Country House’ had a strange German oompah band wind instrument sound at the end and Damon Albarn’s vocals are backed by a weird falsetto chanting, which created a rich sound for a simple song. Apparently Blur themselves eventually hated the song, refusing to play it live, but what would they know? They only wrote it.

The one that everyone knows though, probably their most famous song, was titled simply ‘Song 2’ from their self-titled album of ’97. It was simple, it was catchy, it was really, really easy to sing along to and especially great for singing really loudly in the pub after a pint or two or three (hundred). It starts with the drums, a simple guitar riff and then the magical “woo-hoo”; what an awesome song. The verses stripped back, the choruses loud and brash, even 15 years later it’s still two minutes of brilliance and after being featured in loads of marketing campaigns and a complete over saturation of the market, it insured the four members of Blur could retire early and happy. Pop genius.


Although they’ve yet to officially split, the albums they released after ‘Blur’ had nowhere near the same commercial success of the three greats of the 90’s. Damon Albarn has been doing his own thing since 2000 with the Gorillaz, Graham Coxon releases his own solo work (note to self: must check out), drummer Dave Rountree has dabbled in politics and bass player Alex Jones; well, his claim to fame more recently is cheese maker (yes, cheese maker, maker of cheese. How fabulously interesting, I think.)


As for the great Britpop battle? Who can say who won? Oasis sold more records than Blur. Is that winning though? Damon Albarn seems to have managed to maintain more relevance in the music industry through the last decade with the ground breaking Gorillaz and I’ve never tasted Alex Jones’ cheese (?!); it could be delicious and I’d never mock a delicious fromage. Blur will play a gig to close the London Olympics ceremony this year (Damon saying it’s their last) but Noel is rumoured to play at the opening ceremony. Who wins? Although Liam and Noel are continually equally hilarious, maybe it’s Blur who won, after all, maybe it was one of the Gallaghers they were referencing when they came up with the lyrics “…when you put it all together there's the model of a charmless man."



Top 200 Songs of the 1990s, #30 - 21

The tunes just keep getting better and better on the road to #1! You've already read about 170 kick butt songs from the 90s and now there's only 30 to go. It's been a fun ride, but it has to end sooner or later, so let's keep chugging along...

#30 - Song 2 (1997)

by Blur

Woo-Hoo!!! Do you feel heavy metal? Are you suffering from pins and needles? Then there's no better song to listen to than 'Song 2.' Before tearing up the charts as the voice behind the Gorillaz, Damon Albarn was establishing himself in the post-grunge 90s with alternative rock group, Blur. 'Song 2' was easily their best (and most remembered) hit.

#29 - Wise Up (1999)

by Aimee Mann

The best song from THE best original soundtrack of the 90s (that would be Magnolia, dear readers.) If you haven't seen the movie, I'd highly recommend it. Aimee Mann's songs that are used in the movie alone make it well worth the price of admission, or rental I guess. If 'Wise Up' floats your boat, which it should, then you should also check out the songs 'Save Me' and 'One.'

#28 - Bittersweet Symphony (1997)

by The Verve

Go have a read about the copyright issues surrounding 'Bittersweet Symphony.' If you believe The Verve's story, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are massive a-holes and they're now credited as the songwriters. What a joke.

#27 - It's Like That (1997)

by Run DMC vs Jason Nevins

REEEEEMIX... "What's going on across the sea?" We all understand how cool the song is, so let's talk about the video. Boys vs girls breakdance-off! Didn't you wish you could pull off those moves? Did you try and fail? I know I didn't... ... ... what?

#26 - Morning Glory (1995)

by Oasis

Please welcome Oasis back to the countdown... again. I just read that Liam Gallagher has named his new band Beady Eye. I wish them luck. As for 'Morning Glory,' what's there to say? It really is genius in the form of a rock song.

#25 - Together Again (1997)

by Janet Jackson

Janet, the dominant Jackson throughout the 90s. 'Together Again' was her 8th chart topper on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remains one of her biggest international commercial hits. Has anyone else noticed in the video that Janet lives out her fantasy of having a twin... grabbing her boob. Very odd JJ. Great song.

#24 - Creep (1992)

by Radiohead

"When you were here before, couldn't look you in the eye." Songs that give off a stalkerish vibe are always good... except for James Blunt's 'You're Beautiful.' If you're ever in Brisbane, Australia, take a trip to the Fun-da from Down Under Karaoke night in the Nundah pub. An old man sings 'Creep' every week (saying he sings it is being a tad generous) and in his own defiant way refuses to sing the censored version. "You're so fucking special," he bellows. Radiohead would be proud.

#23 - Tonight, Tonight (1996)

by Smashing Pumpkins

'Tonight, Tonight,' marks the Pumpkins sixth and final song to place on the top 200! Regarded by many critics as the best Smashing Pumpkins song, 'Tonight, Tonight' had something no other SP song had going for it... a 30 piece orchestra baby! The strings section send this one into the whole 'epic' territory, which I probably use to liberally... but I really mean it this time. Awards were plentiful for the incredible video, most notably it won Video of the Year at the MTV VMAs!

#22 - Killing Me Softly (1996)

by The Fugees

Lauryn Hill, what a voice. 'Killing Me Softly' is quite possibly the best cover song that will ever grace our ears. For the longest time, this was my favourite song. #1 with a bullet. I was what, ten? Then I heard music with swear words (because swearing makes you cool kids - I never said I was a role model) and it slipped down the list a bit, but it's still up there with the best of them.

#21 - You Oughta Know (1995)

by Alanis Morissette

Feeling a little sad after a bad break-up. Listen to this. You'll be right as rain! The ultimate f-you to a former lover, 'You Oughta Know,' Morissette's debut single created quite the controversy upon its release. Britney Spears and Beyonce have both been known to add patches of it into their live performances, but they really shouldn't. Angry chick rock was kind of Alanis' thing and she did it well enough to sell a gazillion copies of Jagged Little Pill.