Six Sneaky Contenders For The Hottest 100 Of The Decade
They're not the frontrunners - but definitely don't count them out.
The Hottest 100 of the Decade is fast approaching: voting for the poll closes on Monday March 9, with the countdown happening a few days later on the 14th.
Which means now is the time to frantically whittle down your shortlist of songs from the entire bloody decade to just 10 tracks. It’s a damn near impossible task — and triple j, and us, have made it a little easier for you by pointing in the direction of some of the decade’s biggest bangers, from ‘Never Be Like You’ to Adrian Lux’s ‘Teenage Crime’.
Thanks to vote aggregator Warm Tunas, we have a fairly good idea of which songs to expect up the pointy end of the poll — but the race is still very much undecided, and there are a number of tracks that, despite not being out-and-out frontrunners, could sneak their way to the top. Here are six songs we think could have a shot at the crown.
Flight Facilities feat. Christine Hoberg — ‘Clair De Lune’
Coming in at #17 in the 2012 countdown, Flight Facilities’ dreamy ‘Clair De Lune’ remains one of the decade’s finest dance tracks. Alongside the Merimbula duo’s other big single, ‘Crave You’, the track is a firm festival and backyard BBQ favourite — it’s also a favourite of Telstra, who picked it up to run on their TV advertisements a few years ago.
Perhaps thanks to this constant, lilting bombardment, ‘Clair De Lune’ feels timeless, the kind of track that listeners will slip into their shortlists without a second thought — and by doing so, they’ll send it to the top of the countdown.
Robyn — ‘Dancing On My Own’
Robyn’s 2010 album Body Talk is one of the most influential pop records ever made, and the jewel in its crown is the cathartic break-up track ‘Dancing On My Own’. You’ve heard it on a dozen dancefloors, you’ve heard it on dozens of TV shows, you’ve heard its influence in dozens and dozens of pop tracks.
Infamously, triple j listeners didn’t vote the track into the countdown at the time of its release — but given it’s currently sitting at #23 on Warm Tunas, it looks like that mistake will finally be rectified.
Childish Gambino — ‘Redbone’
Despite coming in at #4 in the 2018 countdown, Childish Gambino’s incendiary track ‘This Is America’ has been curiously absent from the discourse around the Hottest 100 of the Decade. Instead, it’s his smooth-as-silk 2016 track ‘Redbone’ that has been steadily scooping up the votes.
‘Redbone’ and Gambino’s other big single ‘3005’ have been swerving around the mid-20s on Warm Tunas, and both tracks will probably be seen up the business end of the count. But of the two, we’ll put our money on ‘Redbone’.
Alt-J — ‘Breezeblocks’
Alt-J might have dropped off the face of the earth recently, but for a brief and confusing time they were genuinely regarded as one of the biggest bands on the planet. Breakthrough track ‘Breezeblocks’ rose to #3 in the 2012 Hottest 100, with follow-up single ‘Tessellate’ coming in at #64.
They’ve failed to replicate the success of their early singles in recent years, but it would be foolish to discount them given how powerful a pull they had at the time.
Lorde — ‘Green Light’
Music Junkee contributor Jackson Langford put forward a very strong argument for Lorde’s ‘Royals’ to win the Hottest 100 — but don’t forget about ‘Green Light’. The lead single from the singer’s second album Melodrama is an explosive break-up anthem, the kind of track you put on when you’re running barefoot down the street in the middle of the night.
It came in at #6 in the 2017 Hottest 100, and it’s currently hovering around the the #26 mark on Warm Tunas (‘Royals’ is at #12), but there’s every chance it could rise higher.
PNAU — ‘Chameleon’
After 2011’s underwhelming Soft Universe and 2012’s Elton John remix album, Good Morning To The Night, you could have been forgiven for thinking that PNAU’s best music was behind them. But then came ‘Chameleon’, and suddenly the dance veterans were back, and making the best music of their career.
‘Chameleon’, the lead single from their excellent album Changa, tore apart the airwaves when it dropped in November 2016 — it surged to #11 in that year’s Hottest 100, went platinum, and became the undisputed dance anthem of the summer. The band have followed it up with a string of dancefloor fillers — ‘Go Bang’, ‘Solid Gold’, ‘Changa’ — but the sheer body-moving power of ‘Chameleon’ outstrips them all.