20 years of Triple J's Hottest 100

So the other night as I was putting together the LINKspired post I began to ramble a bit when I mentioned Triple J's Hottest 100 from the past 20 years. So to avoid the ramble in that post I have given it a post all of it's own! Look out, here I go getting all nostalgic about music and being a teenager.

20 years of Triple J's Hottest 100! Wowee! Gosh it's almost as old as me! Established only two years after I was, this annual countdown began in 1993 when to place your vote you actually had to make a phone call! The voting system has certainly evolved since back in those days! Personally I feel the annual 'indie' countdown has become a strong staple in the Australian music scene. Amazing to think of all the fantastic music that has been produced in this time. All those songs that just from hearing the start of the tune play through your speaker you know what is coming for the next three and a half minutes. That is unless you choose to hit that switch and change the channel or jab at that skip button on your iPod.

I'm left feeling like quite the newb as I only really got into Triple J's selection of music five years ago when my brother (who had long been a listener) bought the Hottest 100 Compilation CD that year. My music taste before this time had been limited and innocent in many ways as I would have far from strayed from the typical top 40 tracks that are forever hashed out on the radio. The first album I ever purchased with my own pocket money was Britney Spears Oops... I Did It Again. And I'm still more than into all that mainstream music. I still buy Britney Spears CDs as I label my music taste as un-selective and very broad. Just don't expect me to listen to heavy rock or death metal and I'll be happy.

So at the age of sixteen I was exposed to Volume 15 of the hottest 100 and I recall having it on repeat as I fell in love with the difference in selection to my common listening habits. It was 2009, the year that Mumford and Sons claimed it was not your fault while Bluejuice were walking around on a broken leg, and Lisa Mitchell was sitting in a Coin Laundry. Vampire Weekend were singing about Cousins and Lily Allen was complaining that it's not fair. That whole album was the soundtrack to that year and I still listen to any of the songs featured on it and like a time machine it takes me back to those innocent days of being sweet sixteen.

And here we are five years later and it is definitely one of the most exciting parts of the year compiling that short list and indecisively trawling through all the tracks you fell in love with that year and chopping down that list to vote for your ten favourite songs while there are about 30 others that you had to cut off. With this count, hottest 100 from the past twenty years they were a bit generous and let us put in twenty of our favourites but then again the list of possibilities increased tenfold! It was so challenging to vote as I'm sure you found if you did. My list was heavily based on the last five years of music... or even three maybe.... my afterthoughts were filled with regret as I realised all the music I hadn't even considered! Go check out the final list. And they've even compiled it as a YouTube Playlist for us!

Now the count is all over and I've just spent the entire afternoon enjoying the fantastic selection it became as song after song popped up that I repeatedly wondered how I hadn't come to consider it in my own list!

All I can say is thank you Triple J! Thank you for playing the music you do and being the radio station that you are and making the Hottest 100 list that I'm sure will age beautifully far beyond another 20 amazing years of music!

Talking about it over on The Project