Shoulda Been Higher

by Tom W. Clarke

The Hottest 100 is a national institution.

Every year since 1993, Australia's national youth broadcaster triple j has held annual countdown of listeners' 100 favourite songs of the year, as voted by the public. It's as iconic of modern Australiana as sausage sizzles and leadership spills. It has become so much more than music. It's beaches, barbeques, and bonfires. It's joy and despair, drama and debate, friendship and community.


This book is a fun retrospective- an insightful, light-hearted and deeply respectful celebration of the colourful history of 'the world's greatest musical democracy'. Taking account of the thirty annual countdowns, the book traces the social, musical and cultural impacts of the Hottest 100 over the decades. Its jam packed with stats, stories, little-known facts, and the kinds of fiery debate-starting questions that make the Hottest 100 what it is.

This is the definitive account of the Hottest 100, a chronicle and a love letter - it's the complete picture from Augie March to Ziggy Alberts, 'Amazing' to 'Zombie'.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Australia

341 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2023

About the author

Tom W. Clarke is an Australian writer, comedian and podcaster. He is an obsessive music and sport nerd - he settled for writing about them once he realised that he possessed no relevant talent whatsoever. He hosts the podcast Spinning Around- 100 Songs That Shaped The Australian Sound, writes the Australian music blog Fresh Local Produce, and is a regular contributor to The Roar.

He has performed stand-up comedy around Australia, including a run of sold-out solo shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Tom lives in Melbourne with his brilliant wife and sparkly young son. He can be found watching footy on the Fitzroy hill, espousing the superiority of instant black coffee, and walking until he finds inspiration (or a good sandwich shop, whichever comes first).

Reviews

[HughieB]

I had high hopes for this book, having been a keen voter from the early days in the 90's now fading into irrelevance as these days music is curated more personally by streaming services and social media.
The statistics are initially interesting but wind up being too contrived.
Tom's personal ratings betray his prejudices, for example intense dislike of Ben Lee and sniffy put downs of Offspring & Chumbawamba rather than anything meaningful or, God forbid, objective.
Best and worse years are really just the ones he liked or hated.
The reality is that a winner in 2023 is nothing like as significant as it was in 1993 because the reach of JJJ is declining, votes are fewer and the possibility of bots corrupting the result surely very high.
The skewing of the result to favour the JJJ playlist (mostly stemming from R Kingsmill) is not given much consideration, notwithstanding it was to some extent a self fulfilling prophecy.
Play it enough and the audience will vote for it.
With about half the reach of 20 years ago, the barometer is losing it's importance and just half a million listeners in Sydney & Melbourne, that's insignificant compared to Tik Tok etc, not to mention Spotify and YouTube.
This decline in audience may well be the reason for the purported change in tastes, or could it simply be that the >30's have tuned out leaving a greater percentage of Hip Hop and EDM fans still listening to the J's?
Would have loved this to be properly explored and yes, this would be a good use of stats.
Tom's categorizing of songs into genres is plain odd. Cat Empire, Tash Sultana & Augie March folk acts?
Finally, what's with the formatting error on first page of each chapter?
Shoulda been deeper?

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Opener
Camp Cope
2017 #58

Reading the first dozen or so pages of Shoulda Been Higher I was struck with the claim that the Hottest 100 was "the purest expression of democracy". An interesting claim considering the station eliminated Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' from contention in the 2014 countdown, something critics have seen as something not in line with a 'pure democracy' but more of an act of cultural elitism. The undemocratic nature of this is even implied by Clarke in the final chapters where he jokingly suggests that were the democratic process adhered to 'Shake It Off' would have reshaped the world. A joke that requires at least tacit acknowledgment that something undemocratic may have happened.

To gain some clarity on this I figured it's worth looking at why Shake It Off was banned.

Taylor
Jack Johnson
2003 #17

Understanding a rough timeline of the #tay4hottest100 campaign helps in understanding Triple J's response.

15/12/14: Voting opens for the 2014 Hottest 100.
13/1/15: Mark Di Stefano, a Buzzfeed journalist, kicks of the #tay4hottest100 campaign by posting an article and tweeting the hashtag with a message to 'teach the snobs a lesson'.
14/1: Initial reporting on the campaign by outlets such as Tone Deaf.
15/1: KFC posts a promotion to its Facebook page using the hashtag.
18/1: Voting closes.
20/1: Reporters pick up on the KFC promotion.
26/1: Triple J announces that Shake It Off has been banned from the countdown. They do this through a link to a Buzzfeed parody site (triplejfeed.com) listing "8 Hilarious But Totally True Reasons You Won’t Hear “Shake It Off” In The Hottest 100".

Recreating the exact level of engagement during the campaign is difficult as noted by Greg Fuller, in his article 'The #tay4hottest100 new media event'. (1) It is not however impossible, and Fuller has managed to create a detailed model of the campaign. This model is aided by Katie Prowd and Darryl Woodford, a pair of Queensland University of Technology researchers who had developed a 'hypometer' that allowed them to track social media engagement in real time during the campaign. (2)

Fuller found that the social media activity during the campaign generally surround three high points. The first was the initial Buzzfeed tweet and article and the lead up to the poll closing a few days later. The second spike was during the week after voting had closed. It centred around commentary by ex-Triple J presenters about the campaigns expected failure as well as the KFC controversy as reporters picked up on the KFC ad. The final spike was on Australia Day, centred on the failure of the song to make the list.

As far as the actual banning of the song goes the exact reason has never been clearly stated. The best information available is what was listed on the triplejfeed.com website which was (summarised):

1. Don't (Buzz)feed the trolls. Buzzfeed is a corporation worth (at the time) $850 million, it is unfair for them to throw around their weight to as they describe it "teach those music snobs a lesson" while Buzzfeed enjoys the ad revenue.
2. Haters gonna vote vote vote. A list of vitriolic attacks by Swifties on Triple J and its listeners. Stating that *"The Hottest 100 has as low a tolerance for trolls"*.
3. Do we really want to talk about this every year? Triple J did not want to set a precedent of allowing trolls to influence the poll. Asserting that web developers had made an app to automate voting for Swift.
4. Not every KFC idea is a good idea. Corporate promotion isn't welcome.
5. More like #Tkay4Hottest100. Swift's inclusion would have seen the #100 song, Switch Lanes by Tkay Maidza, drop off the list.
6. 13,511 more reasons. Shake It Off was never played on Triple J.
7. I’m number one, so why try harder? Shake It Off didn't receive enough votes to reach #1, it only would have reached #12.
8. We ain’t even mad. In short; Triple J doesn't have beef with Taylor Swift.

The list is quite comprehensive and covers most, if not all the complaints people have about the campaign. However while some read as rules, some are clearly justifications for the ban made after the fact. Triple J surely doesn't have a rules stating 'Tkay Maidza has the right to be in the Hottest 100' or 'you can troll us as long as the song gets to #1'. The easiest way to clear this up is to unpack each reason one at a time.

Don't (Buzz)feed the trolls.

The impact of the campaign is, as mentioned, difficult to quantify. However the numbers provided by Fuller and the QUT researchers don't suggest that it was overwhelming. Fuller found that overall there were 4,502 tweets with the #tayforhottest100 hashtag, of these there were 2,319 unique users. The QUT researchers found 7,341 posts in the 30 days prior to January 23 related to Taylor Swift and the Hottest 100 (the QUT researchers don't appear to have zoomed in on the 5 day campaign period). Of these 7,341 they were split about 50/50 between people for and against Swifts inclusion in the poll. While the campaign existed outside of Twitter as well, this gives an indication of how strong the movement was; thousands of people not tens of thousands. In a poll of 2,099,707 these are not numbers indicative of mass manipulation.

If mass manipulation was a real concern Triple J, who have access to the voting statistics, could very easily have shown or described a deviation towards Swift once the campaign started. In a perfect world they could adjust this deviation or at the very least eliminate votes for Swift during the five day campaign period. This would have allowed for a fair representation of people voting for Swift. But, for whatever reason, Triple J did not take this path, or even indicate it was an option. The question remaining: why not? It is the world's largest musical democracy after all.

Haters gonna vote vote vote

In the social media space, the campaign was dismissed by Triple J fans as a cynical manipulation by Swifties. Swifties defended the campaign with the counter claim that Swift and Swift's songs (and by extension her fans) were being undervalued by Triple J because of a historical bias towards rock music. The other debates during the campaign surrounded the gender of pop musicians and the role of institutions in reproducing taste-based musical scenes. A conflict reminiscent of the rockism and poptimism debates between music critics.

Triple J's justification here leans into this and presents those voting for Swift as people motivated by hate or anger towards Triple J and their audience and need to 'prod some ‘hipsters’ for the lulz'. What Triple J is omitting is that the comment made by Di Stefano in his initial tweet to "teach those music snobs a lesson" was provoked by earlier exchange between then ABC Managing Director Mark Scott and a twitter user who asked why Shake It Off was not included in the shortlist of likely Hottest 100 candidates, being told by Scott to 'shake it off'.

While the malice directed toward Triple J and its listeners is no doubt true in some instances, it is also true that the Triple J crowd didn't exactly take the high road. As noted by both Fuller and the QUT researchers the vitriol was split about 50/50 between two sides, with the worst of the Triple J listener behaviour escalating to death threats.

My point here is not to 'both sides' this argument but to draw attention to the misrepresentation of Swift voters. By presenting Swift's fans as motivated solely by a hostility to 'hipsters' they discount the ideas that people may have genuinely voted for Shake It Off in the countdown or that they felt a genuine injustice with how their musical tastes were being treated by the national youth station. Something that Triple J never appeared to investigate or take seriously, opening the question as to whether the initial complaint of cultural elitism had some validity.

The second part of this justification is a low tolerance for trolls. Triple J has an interesting relationship with people 'trolling' the Hottest 100. The most notable instance of this was in 2002 when Salmon Hater's 6.66 charted at #26. Salmon Hater was a band created by then presenters Wil Anderson and Adam Spencer after a joke about their favourite bands. The joke went to the next level when listener Mitch Hertz provided the song 6.66. Anderson and Spencer went on to promote the song during their hosting segments, seeing it voted to the Hottest 100. Clarke brings this up in the book calling it "really the first #tay4hottest100-style campaign". Presumably this was acceptable by Triple J at the time, being taken as some good, light-hearted fun rather than as a troll of the station.

The question that is raised here is what is the criteria for deciding between a troll and a bit of fun?

Do we really want to talk about this every year?

As far as a justification for why Shake It Off was banned there's not a lot in this that is not covered by the other items in the list.

Triple J did however present a screenshot of an app that purportedly allows people to spam votes, but within the screenshot it is clearly shown that the user has to click the validation email they receive for the votes to count. This is again something that, if really impacting the poll, could be demonstrably shown. Which Triple J have never done.

The other part of the justification here is that if Triple J accepted Swift into the poll it would be encouraging others to do the same in the future. Besides reinforcing the narrative that Swift voters only voted disingenuously, the ban also didn't stop the exact same thing occurring the next year. Which leads into the next point.

Not every KFC idea is a good idea.

Corporate promotion seems like the most cut and dry rule to get a song banned and for the 2015 Hottest 100 Triple J instituted a 'don't troll the poll' rule. This was immediately tested when a betting agency started a #bieber4hottest100 campaign. The hashtag was then picked up and retweeted by Bieber himself giving it a promotional reach far beyond what occurred with the #tay4hottest100 tweet. The initial response from Triple J was the acting station manager stating that if they feel that the results of the poll are skewed votes may be disqualified or ignored. Crucially, it was not an immediate disqualification.

Bieber had three eligible songs in 2015; What Do You Mean?, Sorry, and his collaboration with Skrillex and Diplo: Where Are Ü Now. Ultimately none of the songs made the list, but critically, neither did Triple J exclude any songs in 2015. The facts of being promoted by both a corporation and Bieber himself were not enough to get songs pre-emptively banned from the list. Triple J instead waited for all the information to come in and found they had to do nothing. Opening the obvious question of: is a rule that is only applied after the fact really a rule or a murky qualifier that can be applied at will?

More like #Tkay4Hottest100

As shown by Clarke in the book, Triple J is irreverent, it is part of its charm. This has seen some really weird songs getting into, and ranking highly, in the Hottest 100. No other top 100 is having the spoken word William Shatner cover of Common People get a top 25 place. However, each irreverent track that makes the list sees someone lose their #100 place.

Salmon Hater, as explained above, is a pure joke, one which saw someone lose their #100 place. Back Door Man by Pauline Pantsdown played on Triple J for 11 days in 1997 before Pauline Hanson obtained a court injunction to prevent the station from playing it further. While it finished at #5 the station did not air it during the countdown. By keeping an unaired song in the list instead of putting it aside and explaining the controversy some other artist lost out on the #100 spot. The examples can go on.

This begs the question, why does it matter in this case that someone is losing their place?

13,511 more reasons.

Here Triple J pushed the idea that a song must be played on the station before it is eligible. As a rule, this is again contestable as U2, Alanis Morissette, Green Day, and the Foo Fighters have all appeared in previous polls with songs that have not been played on the station.

The most prominent example however is Sia's Chandelier which appeared at #7 in 2014 despite never having had been in rotation. All that appeared was a remix in a house party set and a Like A Version cover by Montaigne. In Sia's case the likely reason for the lack of airplay was that the song was already heavily supported on mainstream, commercial radio.

Airing on commercial radio is also hardly a barrier for playing on Triple J. Powderfinger and Silverchair are two of the most successful band in both the ARIA's and the Hottest 100 and receive plenty of airtime. Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon took the #1 spot in 2008 despite, according to Clarke, the song being "a transparent (though successful) attempt to launch {Kings of Leon} into stadiums". A similar thing occurred with Are You Gonna Be My Girl? by Jet in 2003, a band who were momentarily one of the biggest in the world after appearing in a couple of Apple ads.

The inconsistency in Triple J applying the 'rule' that a song must be played on the station before it is eligible makes its status as a 'rule' questionable.

I’m number one, so why try harder?

This is the closest available statement on the actual effect and size of the campaign. With the tallied votes Shake It Off would have peaked at #12. This fits with the scale of what Fuller, Prowd, and Woodford had observed, what Fuller described as a "mid-sized hashtag-based campaign". This undercuts the idea that what was occurring was mass manipulation of the polling data through Buzzfeed and botnets that needed extreme action to stop. Instead, it presents a moderate issue that could be managed. Again, raising the question of why ban it?

We ain’t even mad.

Generally, the approach of announcing the ban through a satirical list of justifications is...interesting. On their own each point reads as a vague justification which opens itself up to further questioning. The inconsistency in their application shows they are not hard blanket rules that, if broken, would see a songs ability to enter the countdown invalidated. Rather they are simply a set of post hoc justifications. This leaves an open question: which one was it? Or is Triple J running some Byzantine system where a song has to meet a selection of criteria in order to be banned? Triple J's suggestion: don't think about it too hard maybe just, you know, shake it off.

At the end of the day there has never been an official announcement as to why Shake It Off was banned and attempts to gain clarity have been cut off. The Guardian and three other outlets put in FOI requests around the time of the ban which were knocked back on the grounds that the material sought fell under the program material exemption and was therefore not covered by the FOI Act. While two outlets were provided with some material, none of it answered definitively why the song was banned. My recent FOI request was knocked back for the same reason.

My point in running through the campaign is not to argue that the Swifties were right and that Triple J was wrong, but rather to show that all the justifications that Triple J gave for banning Shake It Off were contestable and made after the fact. There's no real consistency behind anything the station said, no firm rule they're appealing to, only justifications that appear selectively applied which in turn raises more questions. The only coherent line I can see running through all this is that Taylor Swift is just a bit too commercial for Triple J.

But what does it mean then to be a bit too commercial? For Triple J the answer can be found in the past and the myth of Triple J as discussed by Katherine Albury (3) and Jen Webb (4).

(1) The # tay4hottest100 new media event: discourse, publics and celebrity fandom as connective action: Communication Research and Practice: Vol 4 , No 2 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
(2) Taylor Swift campaign has swallowed Triple J Hottest 100. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...
(3) Spaceship Triple J: Making the National Youth Network - Katherine Albury, 1999 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...)
(4) Cleaning up the Grunge - Jen Webb, 1999 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1...)

Continued in comments

[Tom J · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is one of the biggest fumbles of a good idea that i've ever read. the book alternates between interesting facts and some of the worst takes on music you've ever heard, all overlaid with an insufferable layer of humour. if the jokes were good then their inclusion would be fantastic, but unfortunately the jokes hit roughly 20% of the time. the rest are astounding clangers.

i think part of what makes it so intolerable is that the author is deeply, unavoidably biased towards a few bands, which colours everything in the book. regurgitator is an okay band, but if your only exposure to them was this book you'd put them on par with bands like oasis and led zeppelin.

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoulda Been Higher is an affectionate, energetic celebration of three decades of Triple J’s Hottest 100 — a cultural ritual that has shaped, reflected, and occasionally divided Australian music fans since 1993. Spanning every countdown from the inaugural list through to 2022, the book offers a nostalgic deep dive that feels especially timely in the lead up to this year’s event.

One of the Tom Clarke’s most compelling through lines is the reminder that the Hottest 100 has never been a list of the best songs of the year. Instead, it captures listeners’ favourite songs — a far more democratic, emotionally driven measure. That distinction becomes a lens through which the entire history of the countdown makes more sense: each year becomes less a canon and more a snapshot of collective taste, identity, and the shifting sensibilities of Triple J’s audience.

The book’s structure reinforces by grouping songs into six overarching genres — rock, pop, folk, hard rock, electronic, and hip hop — Clarke traces how the countdown has evolved over time. The early years are unmistakably rock centric, almost a time capsule of 90s alternative culture, while the shift around 2010 toward pop dominance reveals just how dramatically the musical landscape (and the station’s audience) has changed. Watching that evolution unfold across the decades is one of the book’s quiet pleasures.

There’s also a playful, opinionated streak in the author’s ranking of every Hottest 100 year from worst to best. Whether you agree or not, the commentary invites you to revisit your own memories of particular countdowns — the songs you loved, the ones you argued about, and the ones you still think were robbed.

Above all, Shoulda Been Higher is simply fun. It’s the kind of book that sends you down listening rabbit holes, sparks debates with friends, and reminds you why the Hottest 100 remains such a beloved part of Australian music culture. As a companion to the upcoming countdown, it’s been a perfect warm up — nostalgic, surprising, and full of the joy that comes from rediscovering the soundtrack of the last 30 years.

[PW · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this book as soon as I saw it in my local bookstore as I am a massive H100 fan and have been following all the lists closely for many years. I was hoping for some interesting discussions and insights into my favourite yearly countdown but ended up really disappointed.

Firstly, this book is riddled with errors. Two examples include mentions of Ball Park Music with the placement for 'Cherub' changing from #5 to #4 throughout the book and their song 'Stars In My Eyes' being labelled as 'Stars In Our Eyes.' Simon and Garfunkel was written incorrectly as 'Garfunkel and Oates,' who are an American comedy duo and not the esteemed folk duo.

Secondly, and perhaps my biggest issue with the book is just how miserably mean-spirited it is. Why such fervent and deep ire for beloved acts like Ben Lee, The Offspring and Bloc Party? I wanted to read this book to engage with a fellow music lover who also adores and cherishes music like I do. It felt like so many bands were constantly sledged for doing the exact same things the author praised other bands for doing.

Lastly, I didn't find the book very engaging. It felt very disjointed and sloppy with many points being repeated throughout the book. I found the middle section particularly mundane as it was mostly just rating countdowns with a very hard to understand, arbitrary rating system based on personal opinion and not, perhaps, interesting, researchable facts.

Overall, I think this book was a big disappointment as someone who loves the history of this beloved countdown. I would love to see a more facts-based book that touches on a wide range of topics such as the countdown's impact or its current trajectory in the time
of streaming services.

[Dani Ringrose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, it immediately gets a bonus star because of the title. I recommend having Spotify open nearby while you read this to add all the songs you'd forgotten about.

The writing style felt like I was chatting to mate over my third strong alcoholic beverage. Some great analogies, especially taking down awful songs and countdowns. Would've loved to be a collaborator talking shit about all these songs.

Completely indulgent thought experiement that is a lot of fun for music trivia nerds for myself. If you weren't after deep dives on music or a trivia nerd, you would dip out of this book pretty quickly. Some sections could've easily been pulled - I found myself starting to skim sections, particularly the "greatest hottest 100" rankings.

"The 2009 Hottest 100 wasn't a rollercoaster, it was the kiddie train that runs around the theme park. It's the sexless, kinda dull guy you settle for after your unreliable boyfriend with the neck tattoo and hynotising penis."

"[Jet] are the Avatar of 2000s rock music. They have seemingly left no cultural footprint - they simply were, and then they weren't."

"The plain water cracker with no dip that is 'Amazing' by Alex Lloyd."

"Sensual, pleading, mystified - [Crave You] is a groove about unrequited lust that makes you wan tto dance and cry and fuck and maybe cry again. Nothing wrong with that, don't feel weird."

[Francesca · Rating 2 out of 5]

How this guy was considered qualified to write this book I will never know. This book haunted me for over a month, having to constantly renew it from the library because I didn't want it to win but it nearly broke me.

Can anyone just write a nonfiction book about something and not have it fact checked at all? I like to think I've got a pretty decent knowledge about music, especially 90s alternative music and here are just some of the mistakes I spotted:

- Said that Apocalypso was The Presets debut album (it wasn't, it was Beams)
- Spelt Lana Del Rey "Lana Del Ray", twice
- Misquoted the lyrics to a pretty well known song and it's shitting me that I can't remember what it was but it was a pretty big clunker of a mistake to make
- Called At the Drive-In a joke band comparing them to Crazy Town (this is more just a very weird opinion given they're a seminal post-hardcore band)
- Thought that Filter and The Crystal Method was one band, when any self respecting expert on alternative music should know that they collaborated on a song together for the Spawn soundtrack
- Called Shawn/Clown the frontman of Slipknot

These are just some of the ones that jumped out at me so how can I believe anything this guy wrote? The only reason it's two stars instead of one is I discovered some pretty cool songs I didn't know about from reading it but Jesus this was a chore to get through.

[Colette Godfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to rate. A bit of a trip down memory lane as the decades have passed. Interesting to think about how musical tastes change over the years (particularly in the current climate for radio and the recent shake ups at the network). Contains a lot of facts and stats, which can’t be argued with, and a lot opinion - which can be. I disagreed with many of the statements about which songs the author considered the best and which were ‘awful’. But then that’s the beauty of the democracy of the Hottest 100 isn’t it? Everyone can have their vote! ;o)

[nic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was INCREDIBLE. it’s the perfect mix of funny, informative and nostalgic and the absolute perfect book to finish my year on!

as someone who has loved the hottest 100 from a very young age it was so nice to revisit them from an analytical pov.

[Shan Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Gen X/Older Millennial, Triple J’s Hottest 100 was a part of my culture for many years. The book was okay, some interesting takes, but also some weird ones. At least I created a dope ass Spotify playlist out of it…

[mia ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 that was fun

[John Hastings · Rating 5 out of 5]

Light hearted, funny, well written and extensive account of the cultural touchstone that is the hottest 100

[Calvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The family tree was very cool

[Danielle Laman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well it made me listen to the Triple J Hottest 100 so it must be doing something right

[Dylan Levey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, featuring some interesting facts and figures of Australia’s most beloved music countdown, which tracks the trends, trend-setters, and tales of Australian popular music as a whole.