Gotye Tops The Hottest 100: We Told You So
News posted Thursday, January 26 2012 at 08:00 PM.
Related: Gotye, Triple J, Hottest 100.
"Gotye to top the Hottest 100."
This was M+N contributor Andrew McMillen’s startling prediction at August’s Splendour In The Grass festival. And while he was mocked and derided like a young Nostradamus at the time, lo and behold, he was right.
‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ featuring Kiwi-born singer Kimbra was officially announced this evening as the “hottest” song of 2011, beating out the likes of The Black Keys’ ‘Lonely Boy’ (#2), Matt Corby’s ‘Brother’ (#3) and Skrillex (#21). It’s the second year running an Australian act has topped the publically voted list, following Angus & Julia Stone’s hipster-bogan anthem ‘Big Jet Plane’.
Other Australian acts in the Top 10 included Hilltop Hoods ‘I Love It’ (#10), The Jezabels ‘Endless Summer’ (#9), 360 ‘Boys Like You’ (#8), San Cisco ‘Awkward’ (#7), Fleet Foxes Boy & Bear ‘Feeding Line’ (#4) and Matt Corby ‘Brother’ (#3).
Speaking to triple j’s Tom and Alex from a BBQ “somewhere in Victoria”, Gotye (aka Wally Debacker) said he was feeling “pretty good” about the win. “I’ve just been enjoying having a BBQ, and then people started coming up to me saying, ‘Song’s coming up mate, song’s coming up mate.’ [That’s when] I started to get nervous.”
Lifted from Gotye’s third album Making Mirrors, ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ hit #1 on the ARIA Singles Chart last August. Its Natasha Pincus-directed clip has amassed more than 50-million YouTube views at the time of writing. Gotye had earlier expressed disappointment with the finished mix of ‘Somebody’, as well as the album’s first single ‘Eyes Wide Open, in a candid interview with M+N.
“It wasn’t about being a perfectionist,” he said. I felt like I made them the best they could be, and there wasn’t anything pragmatic or realistic I could do anymore in terms of remixing, tweaking, re-recording vocals, trying another part, or spending more money and time. I’d only make them sound worse or start disappearing in my own head – or rectum.”
158,258 voters from 144 countries registered 1,378,869 million votes (up 9% on last year) this year's Hottest 100.
Triple J Hottest 100: 2011
100 Mr Little Jeans – The Suburbs
99 The Beards – You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man
98 Jay-Z and Kanye West – Niggas in Paris
97 Foo Fighters – Arlandria
96 The Strokes – Machu Picchu
95 Grouplove – Naked Kids
94 The Wombats – Our Perfect Disease
93 Kimbra – Two Way Street
92 James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream
91 City and Colour – Fragile Bird
90 Beastie Boys – Make Some Noise
89 Beruit – Santa Fe
88 Bombay Bicycle Club – Shuffle
87 Gotye – In Your Light
86 Seeker Lover Keeper – Light All My Lights
85 Cosmo Jarvis – Gay Pirates
84 360 – Throw It Away {Ft. Josh Pyke}
83 The Kills – Future Starts Slow
82 Little Dragon – Ritual Union
81 Busby Marou – Biding My Time
80 Pnau – The Truth
79 SBTRKT – Wildfire {Ft. Little Dragon}
78 Husky – History’s Door
77 Metronomy – The Look
76 Redcoats – Dreamshaker
75 Skream and Example – Shot Yourself In The Foot Again
74 Drapht – Bali Party {Ft. Nfa}
73 Skrillex – First Of The Year (Equinox)
72 Flight Facilities – Foreign Language
71 Luke Million – Arnold
70 Jebediah – She’s Like A Comet
69 Bon Iver – Calgary
68 Arctic Monkeys – Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair
67 New Navy – Zimbabwe
66 Bon Iver – Perth
65 Kasabian – Re-Wired
64 Owl Eyes – Raiders
63 Foo Fighters – Rope
62 Stonefield – Black Water Rising
61 Radiohead – Lotus Flower
60 Joe Goddard –Gabriel
59 Washington – Holy Moses
58 Lykke Li – I Follow Rivers
57 The Rubens – Lay It Down
56 Sparkadia – China
55 Architecture in Helsinki – Escapee
54 The Grates – Turn Me On
53 Bon Iver – Holocene
52 Kimbra – Good Intent
51 The Drums – Money
50 Boy and Bear – Part Time Believer
49 Boy and Bear – Milk & Sticks
48 Art Vs Science – A.I.M. Fire!
47 Sparkadia – Mary
46 Active Child – Hanging On
45 The Kooks – Junk Of The Heart (Happy)
44 Hermitude – Speak Of The Devil
43 Grouplove – Itchin’ On A Photograph
42 Florence and the Machine – What The Water Gave Me
41 The Strokes – Under Cover Of Darkness
40 Foster the People – Houdini
39 Benny Benassi – Cinema {Skrillex Remix}
38 Ball Park Music – All I Want Is You
37 360 – Killer
36 Florence and the Machine – No Light, No Light
35 Illy – Cigarettes
34 Gotye – I Feel Better
33 Jay-Z and Kanye West – Otis {Ft. Otis Redding}
32 Noah and the Whale – L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N
31 Ball Park Music – It’s Nice To Be Alive
30 Calvin Harris – Bounce {Ft. Kelis}
29 Drapht – Sing It (The Life Of Riley)
28 Owl Eyes – Pumped Up Kicks {Like A Version}
27 Example – Changed The Way You Kiss Me
26 The Wombats – Techno Fan
25 Kimbra – Cameo Lover
24 The Wombats – 1996
23 Emma Louise – Jungle
22 Snakadakal – Air
21 Skrillex – Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites
20 Bluejuice – Act Yr Age
19 Nero – Promises
18 The Wombats – Jump Into The Fog
17 Seeker Lover Keeper – Even Though I’m A Woman
16 Grouplove – Tongue Tied
15 Foster The People – Helena Beat
14 Foster The People – Call It What You Want
13 Florence + The Machine – Shake It Out
12 Architecture In Helsinki – Contact High
11 Calvin Harris – Feel So Close
10 Hilltop Hoods – I Love It {Ft. Sia}
9 The Jezabels – Endless Summer
8 360 – Boys Like You {Ft. Gossling}
7 San Cisco – Awkward
6 Lana Del Rey – Video Games
5 M83 – Midnight City
4 Boy & Bear – Feeding Line
3 Matt Corby – Brother
2 The Black Keys – Lonely Boy
1 Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know
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I still haven't heard any Skrillex yet. I need to fix this.
In other news my goiter is growing.
Lulz at the CD WOW ad.
Don't rush. It's a housier version of what Aphex/Rephlex have been doing for years.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Edingborough gardens there was a sing a long....congrats!!!!
oh, you have NO IDEA how much gotye content we have in the pipeline now!
me neither. I dont want to fix it though.
^Best comment of 2012. There called it first.
Ed gdns.. Sing along.. Urgh.. Kill me now!
Or just put skrillex on!
So I'm reading this with a friend, and I too, have never heard any Skrillex, so she puts some on.
Is this a joke or something? It sounds like something the South Park dudes would make up to put in an episode.
Notable absences are PJ Harvey, Adalita and J Mascis who all released great albums in 2011. I guess catchy tunes beat out impressive bodies of work by accomplished musicians.
We're constructed from the same design
With a heart that makes no sense to the mind
We can keep it together but pressure and time have their way
Deserved it
i thought you got a skrillex haircut cause you're into dubstep now!
didn't realise Foster the People had other songs
I genuinely recognised maybe 8 songs yesterday...voted for none of those and am just puzzled when I scroll through that list. Where the fuck was I in 2011? All those songs are completely fuckin foreign to me.
Biggest surprise for me was the lack of 'Yonkers' by Tyler The Creator.
i like that active child song
i was 100% unaware that there was a strokes album released this year
I just listened to the gotye song. Appalling.
This thread inspired me to purchase a bunch of cds from cdwow.com.au at 10% off everything. Bargain!
hmmmmm.....
shtick stolen.
OMG, they stole Excel! You bastards!
if they do their next review in gif form, sue 'em!
Seriously though that is about as lame as seeing Hosier Lane for the first time and deciding to open Stencil Café.
Hahahaha
Better get cracking then..
The brutal thing is that heaps of teenagers from the country will think Stencil Café is rad. Ditto TRIPLE J STEALING YER JERBS.
I dunno. A surprising number of entries aren't particularly catchy, memorable or hummable.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - democracy simply doesn't work.
I'm really disappointed that other people that I don't know put different values upon different songs. It's what's wrong with music these days.
Wow. You've really opened my eyes. Art is subjective. Live and let lie. Everyone's got their own thing, and that's beautiful, man.
Just kidding. Shut up, hippie.
Everybody's got a thing, but some don't know how to handle it.
shakes head
The youth of today.
This is the funniest comment ever. Summarises the whole 'IMA GET REALZ ANGRY MY FAV LOCAL BAND WEREN'T IN THE TOP TEN' vibe perfectly.
That's what I was thinking. So much of it sounded like a cross between scented candle shop muzak and cookie cutter Fox/Nova 'beats'.
I'm feeling kind of weird about not knowing most of those bands now...struggling with the idea that NO bands I love were in a list of 100 songs voted by half a million people.
the hot 100 list is just a self-fulfilling prophecy - Triple J picks the songs the kids hear all year, and then the kids vote for songs they heard on Triple J. if you graph the amount of plays any given song got, and how many votes it got, you'd have direct correlation coming out the wahzoo.
and the theme this year, as with every year, seemed to be ''chillin summa vibez''.
we get older every year, and the playlist gets noticeably shitter - but the music department all got older too, so how come they never realise?
Good theory, but no
My reaction is the opposite. Quite reassured to know that I've developed my own individual music taste that isn't dictated by broadcast media, and that my favourite songs aren't the same as half a million others.
On the other hand, I found that Levins mix reeeally confronting and couldn't listen to it. The tracklist was mostly my favourite songs/bands from my mid-teens and it felt really weird to realise that these personal favourites weren't very personal at all.
no beyonce. fuck triple j
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XY3AvVgDns&ob=av2e song of the year right there
I'd love for this to be statistically tested. This isn't really anything close to that. My suspicion is you're right.
I reckon JJJ would answer this with ''we play what people want/request'' but it's even harder to test that rationale as their sample group is people who can be bothered ringing up or requesting songs on the net. When it comes to radio Morgan/Gallup type polling only measures overall listenership not when people tune in/out as it can do with the more blocky programming of TV.
I always got the impression - years back when I cared a touch more - that shitloads of people that might not have listened to triple J much during the year voted on this as it was bigger than the radio channel itself. I think that might skew it towards the bands that triple J plays before they get picked up by Nova etc.
In any case this song is shite loads better than Big Jet Plane on so many levels and I can think of lots worse songs to be in the no. 1 spot. Praise be, I'm actually really enjoying being able to like a song that is massive amongst lots of people I normally don't have anything in common with! I don't know whether its just subjectivity or not but when people sing along to it in pubs or hum in grocers etc it seems a lot more sincere and proud than when the same occured for Sex On Fire - always a but ambivalent and mechanical. I never heard a single person actively sing along to Big Jet Plane and I work in a pub whose jukebox sure gave people the bloody chance.