The last month has been a rollercoaster of trending events. You went from the the Mushroom cook trial (great for the audio industry) to Coldplay Kiss-cam (buzzing worldwide on socials) to, last weekend, triple j’s Hottest 100 of Australian songs countdown which is also unexpectedly having quite a moment of its own.
My moussaka
Last night I spent many hours putting together a moussaka for dinner while relistening to that top 100. No, not all songs would feature in any countdown of mine, but via the people’s vote it does represent the breadth of talent and genres in this country and the different demographics that they resonates with. I’ve loved the debate about triple j’s Hottest 100 of Australian Songs and how it is making us think about what our music is, and how much it means to us.
I’ve watched ‘The Veronicas were too high‘ chats, or the countdown ‘too Triple M‘ or somehow rigged despite more than 2 million of us polling, with nonchalance. Until I saw a graph from the Australian Women in Media Awards. It said just 7% were female only acts. 93% were male.
These statistics made me so frustrated by what that ‘93% male’ inferred. So, for Chrissy Amphlett, Julia Stone (pictured main with her brother Angus), Amy Taylor, Ella Hooper and more I wanted to account for the women of this countdown who haven’t been acknowledged, plus some cool additional trivia that you might not know about certain of your Hottest 100 favourites and their creators.
The top 100 is here: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/countdown/hottest100
Firstly, some stats from triple j. Of the 2.65 million votes counted more than 50% came from women. The full breakdown is below (the last 2% isn’t explained):
- Women – 56%
- Men – 38%
- Non-binary – 2%
- Not stated – 4%
And, while it might be only 7% female only acts, two of them were #3 and #4. I’d be interested to know what that means in literal number of votes.
The female only acts in the top 100 are:
The Veronicas – twins Lisa and Jess Origliasso – # 3 (Untouched, above) and #76
Missy Higgins – #4 and #52
Kylie Minogue – #27 and #101 (Spinning Around missed the top 100 by 30 votes)
Natalie Imbruglia – #32
and Thelma Plum – #53
Then I count another 20 more where a woman is a key component of the song or band’s make up. 21 if I include Montaigne who uses they/them pronouns. They helped make the Hilltop Hoods’ 1955 (#73) their biggest hit to date and also deserve a nod after their chances at Eurovision in 2021 were absolutely kiboshed by Covid.
Other Top 100 songs that ‘feature’ a female vocalist include:
#10 – Somebody that I Used to Know / Gotye featuring Kimbra (imagine that song without the talents of NZ native Kimbra??)
#26 – Never Be Like You / Flume featuring Kai (Kai is Canadian Alessia Patrizia De Gasperis-Brigante. She also co-wrote the song)
#82 – High / Peking Duk featuring Nicole Millar (Nicole is Canadian / Australian and also features as a songwriter on this track) and
#94 – Clair De Lune / Flight Fantasies featuring Christine Hoberg (Christine and producers Hugo Gruzman and James Lyell wrote the lyrics as a melodic interpretation of a section of Clair de Lune by French composer Claude Debussy which Flight Fantasies mixed to result in this Telstra approved hit)
Next there are the bands that feature women front and centre of their lineup:
Angus and Julia Stone – Julia Stone #20 with Big Jet Plane and #88’s Chateau (above)
The Divinyls – Chrissie Amphlett. #54 – I Touch Myself.
The Waifs – sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson. #74 – London Still
Killing Heidi – Ella Hooper. #77 – Weir
The Go-Betweens – multi instrumentalist Amanda Brown AND drummer Lindy Morrison. #84 – The Streets of Your Town
Amyl & the Sniffers – Amy Taylor. #89 – Hertz
Spiderbait – bass guitarist and singer Janet English. #90 – Black Betty and #95 – Calypso
Then there are bands that have women core parts of their lineup, essential to these featured songs:
# 34 – Booster Seat / Spacey Jane – Peppa Lane and previously Amelia Murray on bass.
#36 – Treaty / Yothu Yindi – from 1993 this band has featured women including Natalie Gillespie and Jodie Cockatoo on vocals.
#47 – Solid Rock / Goanna (see above) – Rose Bygrave vocals, Marcia Howard vocals and synthesisers. An additional piece of trivia is that Rose is one of the vocalists you hear on Treaty plus she wrote On the Platform, the B side of Solid Rock.
#49 – It’s Nice to be Alive / Ball Park Music – Jennifer Boyce – bassist and vocals
#63 – I was Only 19 (a Walk in the Light Green) / Redgum – Verity Truman – flute, saxophone, tin whistle, vocals
If you’ve been counting. you’ll realise there are a couple more unaccounted for. There are another two women whose song writing, and voices, featured mightily.
First is Melanie Safka, the American folk singer songwriter who had a couple of No 1 hits in the early 70s with Brand New Key and Lay Down (Candles in the Wind). MC Matthew ‘Suffa’ Lambert from the Hilltop Hoods picked up a copy of Melanie’s album Garden In The City from an South Australian op-shop for 50c. He liked the flute and the hook of the song People in the Front Row and decided to sample it in a track that became The Nosebleed Section, #2 on this countdown. People in the Front Row is Melanie’s composition. She is (now) credited on the single but sadly passed away in early 2024. Suffa got to meet Melanie before she died and say thank you. He also apparently always buys copies of Garden In The City whenever he sees them in tribute to The Nosebleed Section, the song that first introduced Australia to the Hilltop Hoods.
At the other end of the 100, #93, is a song called Since I Left You by The Avalanches which has one of my favourite film clips (watch above). It too samples numerous songs, the Avalanches are known for their awesome live and recorded DJ sets. Key to Since I Left You is a song from 1968 by Main Attraction called Everyday. In that band were husband and wife Gene and Jeanne Salo. Jeanne is credited as a songwriter for Since I Left You.
I hope I covered every woman who was in the triple j’s Hottest 100 of Australian Songs. Happy to add to my list if I’ve missed anyone. Now it’s time to cook dinner and make my way through this incredible countdown some more.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and music historian for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]