Hottest 100 2010

Happy endings don't exist. Ask Angus Stone. Fortunately for him he has the ability to turn unrequited love into the number one song in Australia, combining with his sister Julia to produce “Big Jet Plane”. The sibling-duo topped Triple J's Hottest 100 in a list dominated by local acts. So now that the most asked question has been answered, how did the rest of the list fair? The 2010 hottest 100 lacked the fist-pumping, foot-stomping, dance crazed appeal of previous years. Gone were the giants of the international music industry and instead those places were filled with a mixture of pop and folk from artists that are still really finding their place on the world scale.

Perhaps it was because I was away for more than half the year but the top 10 seemed awkward and uninteresting. Maybe Little Red's track “Slow Motion” deserved to take the place of their second placed effort “Rock It”. Maybe I don't like the radio-friendly direction Birds of Tokyo are going with in “Plans”. Maybe I simply prefer the original version of “Fall at Your Feet” covered by Boy & Bear. Maybe Cee-Lo's soulful charm in “Fuck You” was wasted on me because I wasn't around for the hype, or perhaps it is slightly overrated. Or maybe Art vs Science should have taken a drink from their “Magic Fountain” before following up their much more original “Parlez Vous Francais?”. It should be noted that Ou Est Le Swimming Pool's infectious indie hit “Dance the Way I Feel” did thoroughly deserve to be up there and Swedish muso Adrian Lux churned out a surprisingly head-in-the-clouds track with “Teenage Crime”. Whatever the reason the majority of this year's top ten appeared off-kilter and not at all up to par with previous years.

As for the remaining ninety percent, the Australian influence in the poll was clearly evident with local names taking charge with American and British artists taking a back seat. An interesting direction of contemporary music is also happening. Like with most art forms there is an ebb and flow in what becomes popular. There's no denying indie is currently en vogue but definition of the genre is up in the air. Folk is stealing it's way into the vernacular and electro/pop is sometimes used as a synonym. The masses are confused what era they should be drawing from, should one follow the sounds of the heart-wrenched warbling of Simon and his pal Garfunkel or is it cooler to recreate the vibrancy of Gang of Four. Triple J's Album of the Year will have you believe psyche-rock is in with Tame Impala re-creating the ethereal sounds of the 70s.

It's quite possible that I'm looking at all this far too in depth and that this year's crop of music just was sub-par. Or maybe I just have crap taste. None-the-less on a compilation level the entertainment value for the top 100 tracks of 2010 was lacking. Here's hoping 2011 brings out something spectacular.