Is this the Gayest Countdown of All Time?
A queer music review of this year’s ‘Hottest 100’
Every year, on the weekend closest to January 27th, Australia’s public broadcaster (Triple J) puts on the taxpayer-funded-and-voted ‘Hottest 100’ countdown, which ranks the public’s top 100 songs of the last year.
It’s an event much of the country tunes in to, and Hottest 100 parties always abound for the long weekend. (Of course, this year those parties took place before COVID-19 hit Australia.)
This year a record number of votes were cast, and the top 10 songs included 5 female solo artists — a perfect fifty-fifty — a number that jumps to 8 if you include female-featured artists.
Alongside the countdown, Triple J publishes data breakdowns of the voting, including statistics such as how many songs involved food as a theme (7!) and the percentage of female artists/groups in the countdown (29%). Thanks to this published information, The Hottest 100 offers a fairly healthy, unsponsored, unbiased pulse on Australia’s music industry and its listeners.
One statistic this year’s countdown didn’t cover, which I believe should be covered every year, is how many songs were created by artists who identified as LGBT+. After all, Queer presence in music is large and continually growing, and it deserves…
