Could Pendulum’s ‘ABC News’ Remix Be A Sneaky Contender For The Hottest 100?

Hottest 100 of the Decade season is upon us, which means that we’ve all spent the last few weeks feverishly trying to guess which songs might take out the top spot. But recently, a dark horse contender has emerged, the kind of song nobody could have expected to rank: the Pendulum remix of the ABC News theme.

Its popularity is driven by Facebook groups, the tune has become a viral meme. And that kind of online popularity is not to be sniffed at — it has the real chance to drive the song up the ranking. Remember early in 2018, when Big Shaq’s novelty hit ‘Man’s Not Hot’ hit the number 51 spot? Don’t discount songs that seem too ridiculous to appear on the Hottest 100; they quickly garner underdog status.

But where did the remix come from, and what are the memes that it has spawned?

The History of The Pendulum ‘ABC News’ Remix

The Pendulum remix of the ABC News theme first dropped back in 2010. Interestingly, the theme itself had been retired some five years previously — it wasn’t even in the Australian consciousness when the band decided to give it a facelift.

Almost immediately, however, the remix from the Perth-based drum and bass band made a splash. As an article published in The Sydney Morning Herald at the time notes, people were blasting the bop everywhere, including “out of a souped-up V8 stereo in Rockhampton.” It went viral in an era where we still hadn’t really worked out what virality actually meant.

That went a long way to helping the song climb that year’s Hottest 100 — it eventually landed in the number 11 spot, just after Mark Ronson’s ‘Somebody to Love Me’ and just head of Drapht’s ‘Rapunzel’.

As for Pendulum’s relationship with the track, they seem to be pretty happy with it, continuing to play the song live as recently as 2018.

Why Is The Track Back Now?

The Pendulum remix wasn’t really in contention for the Hottest 100 of the Decade until it began gathering momentum in meme groups. There, it quickly garnered steam, becoming an oft-used punchline in jokes about the Hottest 100.

Peter Halat / Sultanaposting

Ben Keller / Sultanaposting

Sultanaposting

Then there’s this joker, posting a Spotify playlist of their “shortlist” for the voting.

So What Are Its Actual Chances?

At the moment, Hottest 100 votes aggregator 100 Warm Tunas doesn’t even include the song in its prediction of the final list. The closest thing on that site is Pendulum’s ‘Witchcraft’ ranking at the 69th spot as of this writing.

It doesn’t appear that many people have actually cast their vote for the track, either. A search of the Hottest 100 of the Decade hashtag on Twitter doesn’t show up a single vote cast for the song. Which is perhaps understandable — this is a young meme, and the song has some stiff competition from the likes of ‘Innerbloom’ and literally anything released by Flume.

But hey, anything could happen. Sure, it’s an outside chance, but the track is getting pretty thoroughly saturated in the places where it matters. That’s not for nothing. Could it be that these jokes will be enough to get the remix high up on the countdown? Stranger things have happened.