When triple j revealed the Hottest 100 for 2024 most everyone, including me, had something to say about the relative lack of Australian acts (29) in the 100, although there were 54 in 200-101, including Tame Impala (see below).
Tame Impala is the brainchild of Sydney born, Perth bred singer, songwriter, producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker (main image from Instagram). His collaboration Neverender, with French electronic duo Justice, won the 2025 Grammy for Best Dance / Electronic recording. But you’d never know it, because all eyes, literally, were on a different Australian. Kanye West‘s wife Bianca Censori.
The naked and deeply uncomfortable images of Bianca standing next to a stony faced Kanye were smeared everywhere across social media, including across SCA’s Hit Network stations, ARN’s KIIS and Gold stations (Woody Whitelaw decided he’d turn up to work naked too) and Nova.
Some stations shared Beyonce finally getting a Grammy for Album of the Year:
Others celebrated Chappell Roan‘s powerful speech about supporting the music industry:
But, with the exception of triple j, who have championed Tame Impala right from the start, I saw no other mentions of Kevin’s win, his first across four nominations, except across music publications I follow.
Stations like the Gold Network for example can rightly say that they didn’t mention it because they don’t play Tame Impala. But, I dare say they don’t play Kanye either.
If we celebrate Australians who wins an Oscar in any category, where was that same support for our sole nod at the Grammys?
Kevin wasn’t at the Grammys. He has previously buried an ARIA Award in his back garden for posterity (or because he was drunk) so perhaps the industry acknowledgement doesn’t matter to him. But for a population who is asking questions about how we can throw our support behind Australian acts, to not also include Tame Impala in all the Grammy chatter doesn’t help matters.
Some trivia about Tame Impala:
Tame Impala have twice been top of triple j Hottest 100s, but neither times as you would expect. The Wiggles’ cover of Elephant was No 1 in 2022. More of that below:
Wiggles tops triple j’s Hottest 100 with Elephant cover: Full song list
The other time they were voted No 1 in the Hottest 100 of the Decade in 2020 with The Less I Know the Better. The year of its release, 2015, The Less I Know the Better was No 4 on the countdown!
You can hear more about the inspiration behind the song, how it nearly ended up in Mark Ronson‘s hands, and the dastardly Trevor, in the below triple j Inspired podcast.
Finally Kevin Parker was awarded a Billions Award for The Less I Know the Better. They are awarded for songs with more than a billion streams. As of today, February 4, 2025, it is up near the 2 billion mark!
So now you know. Congrats to Kevin and Tame Impala. The Australian who should have been front page at the 2025 Grammys.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo.