Chappell Roan tops Triple J’s 2024 Hottest 100 with biggest-ever vote

American singer-songwriter Chappell Roan has topped the 2024 triple J Hottest 100 with her soaring falsetto pop blockbuster Good Luck, Babe!, while Sydney pop-guitar duo Royel Otis took out the number 2 spot with their cover of Murder on the Dancefloor.

Nine-time Grammy award-winner Billie Eilish and Britpop sensation Charli XCX dominated the overall chart with eight entries each, including their duet Guess, breaking the record set by Australian act G Flip last year for the most appearances on the list by one artist.

Chappell Roan surged to international acclaim off the back of viral music festival performances.Credit: AP

Roan’s sapphic synth-pop anthem received the highest number of votes in Hottest 100 history, the ABC said. There were 2.4 million votes cast in the poll overall.

The slow-burn success of 26-year-old Roan’s breakout album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, meant none of its songs were eligible for this year’s count. The record was released in September 2023 and, in November that year, a relatively unknown Roan performed to modest venues in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

But over the course of 2024 Roan’s music surged in popularity and came to dominate the charts, driven by Roan’s viral sets at music festivals including Coachella.

She snagged attention with her maximalist outfits – such as the Statue of Liberty, a green-skinned New York taxi and a spandex-clad nurse – and fans fell for her rise from humble busker and music label dropout to one of the biggest acts of the year.

Good Luck, Babe! was released in April and was the only song of Roan’s eligible for this year’s count due to the delayed timing of her meteoric rise. None of her songs appeared on last year’s Hottest 100 list.

Royel Otis stormed to international success off the back of the viral cover.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Royel Otis’ sparkling pop-rock cover of Murder on the Dancefloor was the second-highest ranking Like A Version performance ever behind the Wiggles’ winning 2021 cover of Tame Impala’s Elephant.

The Sydney guitar-pop duo of Royel Maddell and Otis Pavlovic joined forces in 2019.

At the time of the band’s Murder on the Dancefloor cover, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s 2001 original was having its own pop-cultural moment after it served as the soundtrack of a famous nude scene starring Barry Keoghan in Saltburn.

Royel Otis won a suite of ARIA Awards last year including Best Group and Best Rock Album for their debut, Pratts & Pain.

Melbourne DJ Dom Dolla was the second-highest Australian act with dance track Girls at number 7 and G Flip came in at number 9 with their cover of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour opener Cruel Summer.

American singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams clinched number 5 with That’s So True, an emotional banger with a TikTok famous bridge.

Swift also made her debut on the list, 10 years after she was controversially banned from the countdown, as a featured artist on Abram’s song that claimed the 71st spot, us.

Kendrick Lamar’s Not Like Us, a diss track aimed at hip-hop artist Drake, clinched the eighth spot. A simmering rivalry between the artists detonated last year with Lamar and Drake firing a series of sordid accusations at each other.

Lamar became the first person of colour to top the Hottest 100 count in 2017 with HUMBLE.

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