Can Tones and I top Triple J’s Hottest 100 or is there a Dance Monkey backlash?

Voting closes today for Triple J’s Hottest 100. But will Dance Monkey overcome the burnout factor to top the poll, or could three other contenders dethrone Tones And I?

WILL Dance Monkey top this year’s Triple J’s Hottest 100?

Tones And I’s hit song this week clocked up its 24th week atop the ARIA singles chart, breaking a record set by Bing Crosby’s White Christmas way, way back in 1943.

However spending almost half a year sitting at No. 1 on the chart could lead to burn out for Dance Monkey when it comes to Triple J Hottest 100 voting.

Voting opened on December 16 and closes at 3pm today.

Traditionally, last minute voters dominate polling, with Triple J content director Ollie Ward admitting in the past the highest number of votes come on the final day of polling, followed by the first day of voting.

Nick Whyte runs 100 Warmest Tunas, a site which monitors votes posted in public online by listeners (some have slid privately into his Instagram DMs) and turns them into a poll (and a Spotify playlist) to reflect how the actual Hottest 100 could play out.

Will Tones and I’s Dance Monkey top the Triple J Hottest 100? Pic: AAP Image/Brendon Thorne

Whyte accurately picked the last two No1s, in 2018 he picked 7 out of the eventual Top 10 and 83 out of the Top 100.

At the time of writing he has counted 37,248 votes. This year he has US rapper Denzal Curry’s cover of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls on Parade at No. 1, followed by Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, G Flip’s Drink Too Much, Mallrat’s Charlie and Better in Blak by Thelma Plum making up the Top 5.

Whyte’s calculations have Dance Monkey sitting at No. 7 so far.

Could Dance Monkey go higher?

“It’s certainly possible,” Whyte said. “In fact, I think it’s going to be a really close one this year. Even the ABC have blogged about how close the top four are to each other. Making exact predictions is difficult, especially when you only have a small fraction of the data. The small sample will generally give you a good indication, but will never allow you to predict, with certainty, that a particular outcome will occur.”

Dance Monkey was released in May, initially a Triple J hit before crossing over to mainstream radio.

Hottest 100 voters have a history of supporting Australian hit songs released earlier in a calendar year.

Hottest 100 No. 1 Gotye’s Somebody That I Used to Know was released in July 2011, Flume’s Never Be Like You was released in January 2016 but a year later topped the Hottest 100 and Vance Joy’s Riptide, released in May 2013, beat Lorde’s Royals to top the Hottest 100 that year.

Only Gotye’s song has had a similar international impact to Dance Monkey, although Somebody That I Used to Know didn’t impact worldwide until almost a year after it was released in Australia, while Tones And I’s success has been instant.

Whyte said there’s a chance Triple J listeners are too “embarrassed” to post their votes for Dance Monkey now it’s been a massive hit on commercial radio, while the burn out factor could work against it in the voting period (where it’s also been used to promote Dancing With the Stars on Channel 10).

“The song has certainly had its fair share of airtime on many different stations, and there’s only so many times you can hear a song before you’ve had enough,” Whyte said. “I personally enjoyed the song initially, but as it became overplayed it’s appeal wore off.

“I don’t think the ‘commercial hit’ factor plays much into what people vote for or perhaps share. We’ve seen in previous years songs which are commercial hits be predicted correctly and shared wildly online.

Billie Eilish has several songs in the Hottest 100 votes including Bad Guy. Pic: AFP

“In terms of this year’s countdown, I think there’s a few different “camps” – i.e. I enjoyed Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, but there were certainly other songs I would have preferred to have in my Top 10. I voted for it as it was the lesser of the three evils (Bad Guy, Bulls on Parade, Dance Monkey). I think there are many others voting with this in mind.

“But it’s definitely possible (it reaches No. 1). It’s happened more recently too with Flume’s Never Be Like You which was played heavily on commercial radio.”

As he tracks the votes – and he expects a massive spike today and in the days after voting closes as people continue to post their Top 10 screenshots – Whyte admits there’s been one major surprise this year, even as a student of the Hottest 100 – which was Denzel Curry’s cover of Bulls on Parade from Triple J’s Like a Version being a potential No.1.

“When I first ran the prediction pipeline on day one I was surprised for two reasons; I had never heard of the cover before nor heard it, and also it being a Like a Version. I was convinced there was an issue with my data collection or matching algorithm. Clearly I’m not quite the typical demographic Triple J listener anymore!”

If Curry wins, it will be the first cover version to top the poll — it has had over 7.3 million views on You Tube since February last year.

This year’s Hottest 100 will air on Saturday January 25 from midday.

The station moved the Hottest 100 from January 26 in 2018, after 64,990 listeners voted in a national survey to test the waters on changing the date of the poll from Australia Day.

Prior to then, it was held on January 26 but debate sparked over the appropriateness to celebrate it on a day that marks the beginning of British colonisation.

“We all agreed that the Hottest 100 shouldn’t be part of a debate about the day it’s on,” Triple J said in a statement. “The only debate should be about the songs”.

Triple J will play only music by Australian artists on January 26 this year.

On Monday January 27 they will continue their tradition of playing the songs that missed out on the Hottest 100 – songs that reached from No. 101 to No. 200.

Double J will play the Hottest 100 from 1999, with songs from Powderfinger, Killing Heidi, Silverchair, Placebo, Madison Avenue, Pearl Jam, Limp Bizkit, Nine Inch Nails, The Cruel Sea and even Madonna and comedian Peter Helliar.

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ARIA NO. 1 HITS THAT ALSO TOPPED THE HOTTEST 100

The Cranberries – Zombie (1994)

Oasis – Wonderwall (1995)

The Offspring – Pretty Fly For a White Guy (1998)

Kings of Leon — Sex on Fire (2008)

Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know (2011)

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop (2012)

Flume — Never Be Like You (2016)

Australian indie pop star G Flip is set to score a Hottest 100 Top 10. Pic: Supplied

Originally published as Can Tones and I top Triple J’s Hottest 100 or is there a Dance Monkey backlash?