In the lead-up to triple j’s Hottest 100 of Australian Songs this weekend, the Blunt Mag team are counting down their personal top ten – here’s Editor Emily Spindler’s top picks, from The Amity Affliction to The Veronicas.
Update: Full List of The Hottest 100 of Australian Songs Here
Choosing just ten Australian songs has been a gargantuan effort – something I think every writer who I set to the task this week has found. Do you pick the pub classics that get even the most sour-faced punter swaying along, the breakout modern hits, or the alternative hidden gems?
Aussie music comes in so many varying shapes and sizes, and casting my mind (and ears) back on the decades has proven this all the more. Putting local music to the front of mind has completely revamped my high listening rotation for the last few weeks, with deep cuts from Crowded House to newer releases floating across my airwaves of late.
If you’ve not done so recently, I highly recommend spending some time listening to more music from Australia – it’s a reminder that we’re a bloody talented bunch. Of course, I’m probably preaching to the choir here given plenty of heavy and alternative music fans are big supporters of local music, and for good reason.
So many iconic picks didn’t quite make the cut, but the ones that did are a diverse mix of songs that have soundtracked my life (or for some, songs that are just straight up bangers.) Let’s get into it.
10. The Living End – All Torn Down
Melbourne-specific punk music? Sign me up. This song lives rent free in my head and it’s infectiously catchy. It may have released when I was the tender age of one, but it got airplay and then some for years afterwards (once I finally gained enough sentience to recognise and remember music).
9. Killing Heidi – I Am
Ella Hooper, you can do no wrong. I think the music video is burnt into my brain from absolutely rinsing this track on Singstar Rocks! as a kid – I’ll die mad that my sister always seemed to beat me when to me it seemed like she was merely humming along (no evidence of this except I was nine and always correct, of course). Killing Heidi is the local impetus for my love of rock and heavy bands with absolutely sick women at the front. Can’t get better than this.
8. The Presets – Talk Like That
It’s not all alternative and heavy. This track is a banger and a dancefloor filler – although the dancefloors in question for me when this song came out were more Blue Light Disco vibes than sweaty clubs in the CBD.
7. Yothu Yindi – Treaty (Radio Mix)
‘Treaty’ is such a culturally important track and it’s one of the big reasons it makes it into my top ten. It was the first time I ever heard someone singing in Language, and it’s had over thirty years of staying power in the minds of Aussies (and on our airwaves).
6. DMA’s – Delete
The first time I heard ‘Delete,’ I’d just learnt about DMA’s from their game-changing Like A Version cover of ‘Believe’ by Cher – Tommy singing his heart out with a mouthful of gum and all. It was 2016, I was 19 years old and living the scrappy uni student life after some pretty major life changes – and as many are at that age, I was a hot mess. This song was a balm for the ills of the world around me, and a deep comfort – as well as being a great singalong track for long drives to the regions in the summer. It takes me right back to that very era within a heartbeat – and something about that almost bittersweet nostalgia is intoxicating.
5. Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over
I mean, it’s a classic. There’s plenty of debate over which Crowded House song reigns supreme, but this one has just the right amount of melancholy and soaring vocals to get across the line for me.
4. Short Stack – Sway Sway Baby!
Short Stack dropped Stack Is the New Black the same year I turned 12. As you can maybe imagine of a twelve year old girl, a band of emo looking dudes in skinny jeans had me feral – and their high octane music soundtracked the transformative years from kid to angsty teenager. ‘Sway Sway Baby’ is 2009 Aussie pop punk wrapped in a neat bow – it sounds like lining up to get an album signed at some far-flung Westfield shopping center, teasing your hair to the point you probably needed to ask your mum for help to brush it out after, taking cringe selfies on a MacBook camera, and annoying your older sister’s mates as they drank Pulse and got ready to go out to a Destroy All Lines club night you could only dream of attending.
3. The Amity Affliction – Youngbloods
You may notice many of my picks are great singalong songs. ‘Youngbloods’ is no different. This track dropped when I was the ripe age of 13 and it did absolute numbers as I scrolled on Tumblr, reblogging my fiftieth GIF of Joel Birch (or writing Pierce The Veil lyrics on a sticky note to post pictures of). A classic through and through.
2. Ocean Grove – Thunderdome
Ocean Grove have been one of my favourite bands since I first discovered them in 2016 – and The Rhapsody Tapes solidified it for me. I’ve got plenty of favourites from an album that sits squarely in the late teen ratbag era for me – ‘Hitachi’ probably my top one, but I believe it’s a bit too short and interlude-y to make the cut on this list. Thunderdome has all the whispery, echoed vocals, and addictive riffs I want from a track. Nu metal is back? It never left, baby.
1. The Veronicas – Untouched
As if I wouldn’t pick the national bloody anthem as my number one – this track has well and truly solidified its place in the psyche of Aussies growing up in the 2000s. That iconic string section kicks in at an event, and a bunch of 20 to 40 somethings are up on their feet ready to scream their hearts out. Need I say more?
Check out the rest of the Blunt Mag team’s top ten Aussie song picks here:
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