Today radio station Triple J finished broadcasting their Hottest 100 tracks of all time, the first all-time vote since 1998. For those outside Australia and not familiar with the tradition of the Hottest 100, it began back in 1989 and results are determined by listener votes. After two more years the format changed and votes were restricted to tracks released over the previous year, presumably because the top 10 became a list of the usual suspects. Since then 1998 and this year have been the only all-time hottest votes. A traditional favourite, Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division, which was #1 in two of the first three all-time charts only made it to #4 this year, but Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit was #1 in the third and again in 1989 1998 and this year it made it to #1 for a third time.
Thanks to the wonderful collaborative spirit of Web 2.0, this year’s full list is already up on Wikipedia, complete with the year of release of each track. This allows me to indulge in my data mining hobby, which is why I am posting here rather than over on the The Music Blogs. So, inspired by a suggestion from Mark Lauer, a regular Mule reader (and careful sub-editor), here is a look at the distribution of the hottest 100 tracks by year of release.
Hottest 100 Track Ranking by Year of Release
While the density certainly increases after about 1995, reflecting a lot of new entrants since the early charts, there is no clear trend along the 45 degree line (and, for the technically-minded, the R2 is about 0.1%). So, while there are not as many oldies in the chart, those oldies that do make it in are just as likely to rank well as the newer entrants. To make the most of the R code I wrote to produce this chart, here is the same thing showing artist name rather than track name.
Hottest 100 Artist Ranking by Year of Release
To get a better sense of the distribution of rank and year, here is a chart that just shows the location of the tracks by year and rank.
Hottest 100 Rank versus Year of Release
Seeing the data just as points like this shows a concentration of tracks released around the mid-90s. A histogram of the year of release confirms this.
Of course, I’m sure this says more about the demographics of voters than the preponderance of true classics in the 90s.
UPDATE: In this tweet, @nicwalmsley suggested an artist scoring system: 100 points for ranking 1st, 1 point for ranking 100th. As he notes, this system puts Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and Nirvana in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place respectively. Here are the top 10 artists by this measure.
| Radiohead | 343 |
| Jeff Buckley | 269 |
| Nirvana | 188 |
| Powderfinger | 154 |
| Metallica | 152 |
| The Beatles | 149 |
| The Smashing Pumpkins | 139 |
| Pearl Jam | 138 |
| Michael Jackson | 135 |
| Pink Floyd | 13 |
FURTHER UPDATE: @Warlach has laboured hard to assemble the full Hottest 100 as a blip.fm playlist.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: In case you are wondering about the geographic mix, as expected the list is dominated by the US and the UK.
| USA | 45 |
| UK | 37 |
| Australia | 15 |
| France | 2 |
| Jamaica | 1 |
The pedants should note that I’ve counted System of a Down in the USA (rather than USA/Armenia) and Crowded House as Australia (rather than Australia/New Zealand). I hope that doesn’t offend our Kiwi cousins!
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“Teen Spirit” could not have won in 1989 as it was not released until 1991.
Good pick-up! Fat fingers strike. I’ve corrected it to 1998. It won in 1991 and then again in 1998 and now in 2009.
Interesting. I wonder about the demographics though. I don’t know what TripleJ’s audience is these days, but I believe typically it’s under 30.
I, for one, being 33, don’t listen to TripleJ any more, and didn’t hear about the Hottest 100 until after voting had closed. And I would imagine that under-30s would have voted more 2000s songs purely because of familiarity. Under-30s are also tech savvy, so there’s no reason for them not to vote.
So, I wonder if the list says more about music trends instead. Some speculations that feed that notion:
First, the top tracks tend to be emotive rather than fun or just catchy.
Second, times when there’s a strong counter-culture seem to generate more hits – perhaps because it feeds in to the first point.
Third, the late 70s-early 80s has a dearth of hits, possibly because around that time there was a backlash against the counter-culture of the late 60s-early 70s.
Fourth, the 2000s were relatively economically buoyant and gen-Y lacked a strong counter-culture. Perhaps the music of that time was less emotionally charged and thus resonates less today?
Tim: some excellent points there! Like you, I didn’t hear about it until it was too late to vote. I used to be a constant listener to the house of the Js, but that was many years ago now. There is probably one other factor at work for the 200s and that is insufficient time passing. My guess is that to earn a vote as a classic, tracks would usually have some form of nostalgia value (a reminder of major milestones in life, younger days, emotional events, etc) and tracks for the 2000s have not yet had time to accrue that nostalgia value. In 10 years time we might see a higher representation in the hottest 100!
Visualising the #Hottest100 http://bit.ly/DGa6i
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@BensConnolly Another graphic breakdown of #hottest100 http://tinyurl.com/l93uwz
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@seancarmody Your #hottest100 post is AWESOME! http://bit.ly/DGa6i
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@Warlach has laboured hard to assemble the full Hottest 100 as a blip.fm playlist.
I’m another former JJJ listener who no longer listens. But I did vote. And I’m pleased that most of my top 10 made it to the list (except for Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water … darn).
Really enjoyed this post! And don’t you think the Coefficient of Determination would make a great name for a band?
This post has made it into Crikey’s “Graph Pr0n section. Their summary:
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
@Georgina: Coefficient of Determination is such a good name, I should pick up my sax again!
@thinkthinkers Yeah, 90s bands=’classics.’ Of the top artists at the bottom of this post http://bit.ly/h1lOi I regularly listen to all.
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..so this is what you do whilst we are in the yoga waiting room!! i quite fancy your histograms. is there something you could plot in regards to the number of members in a group and their rankings on the poll?
In the yoga waiting room it’s all about aligning my chakra not my histograms!
As to your idea of numbers in the group, maybe the score should be divided by the number in the band…that would put Jeff Buckley on top. The only problem this idea poses for me is that I’d have to work out the number in all 100 myself as it’s not listed on the Wikipedia page!
that’s not too hard a task.
Are you volunteering?
Dividing by number of band members would put Michael Jackson at No. 2
Visualizing the Hottest 100 tracks of all time http://bit.ly/vniOr from @seancarmody
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so are four piece bands the most successful in the poll?
@geojojo: I am still gradually compiling the band size (althouh some are tricky, like Hunters & Collectors with a continously changing line-up). In the meantime, I have added a count by country to the post.
good addition. it’s very single white guy isn’t it?
“Seeing the data just as points like this shows a concentration of tracks released around the mid-90s. A histogram of the year of release confirms this.
Of course, I’m sure this says more about the demographics of voters than the preponderance of true classics in the 90s.”
I disagree. I suggest you compare the concentration of songs in this year’s countdown to that of the 1998 countdown. This year, by my reckoning there were 12 songs from 1997, 9 from 1994 and 7 from 1991. Compare this to what happened in 1998 – 15 songs from 1997, 13 from 1994 and 7 from 1991.
According to the demographic logic, either one of these two things would have happened: (a) there would have been a lot more songs from the 2000′s in this year’s countdown (i.e. songs that are pretty recent) OR (b) there would have been a lot more songs from the 1980′s in the 1998 countdown (i.e. songs that were 10-20 or so years old at that time).
Instead, what actually happened seems to be this – 1991 you can thank Nirvana for, 1994 you can thank Jeff Buckley for, but 1997 you can’t really thank anybody for, which just goes to show what I’ve always said: that 1997 was the best single year of music ever!
The countdown also goes to show that music (at least the stuff Triple J plays) has been on the downward spiral ever since, as demonstrated by the low number of recent songs in the countdown!!
Being 26 years old myself I am going to be somewhat biased, as the 90′s is the music I grew up with, but Triple J listeners aren’t all 26 years old, nor are they all 15 as I was in 1998! At some point the masses have seen the light!!
Rob, you make an interesting point about 1997 rating so well in the list. I make the top years as follows:
1997: 11 (of which 2 are Radiohead)
1994: 9 (of which 4 are Jeff Buckley)
1991: 7 (of which 3 are Nirvana)
1995: 5 (of which 1 is Radiohead)
2000: 5
So, once you count for the high ranking acts, 1997 is a standout winner. But, the best single year of music ever? Now that’s a big call. According to Radio 2 listeners in the UK it was 1967. Being a bit older than you, I’d probably pick a year in the late 70s or early 80s. But, I’d have to agree that there’s certainly something to explain there about 1997. For those wishing to reflect on that question, here is the list, complete with Hottest 100 rank:
5. Paranoid Android, Radiohead
9 . Everlong, Foo Fighters
14. Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve
15. Karma Police, Radiohead
34. Prisoner of Society, The Living End
36. Into My Arms Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
57. Forty-Six & 2, Tool
58. Around the World, Daft Punk
61. Song 2, Blur
67. Brick, Ben Folds Five
75. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Green Day
Meanwhile, here is a mini-poll on best year of music ever.
I’m not so sure. The early to mid nineties were a *fantastic* time for music, not just in Australia but across the Anglophone world. Genres began to arrive and collapse at a rate of months. Both dance and rock music had nearly been defined (if you don’t believe me, think how rarely anything since has sounded ‘new’), and then OK Computer was released… it felt for a time like the last word in modern music. There have been masterpieces since, of course, but not nearly so many at once. I will feel lucky if I live to hear another such explosion of creativity in music.
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The Who didn’t make a single top 100?
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lollerkeet: Maybe I should add: "that comment shows more about my demographics than the preponderance of true classics in the 90s".
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How many of the older tracks are popular because they feature in modern movies or covers? Tiny dancer for example. Even when I was a kid, and even though Triple J has always been pretty okay as far as radio goes – who the fuck WANTS to have audio material jammed down their throat? I just don’t get radio.
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You’ve got a good point about the use of these tracks in movies. I heard someone from Triple J (yes, I was listening to the radio, but it was on 702) saying pretty much the same thing. It serves to reinforce tracks as part of a cultural heritage for many people.
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For a different sort of demographic, I’ve analysed the Guardian’s 1000 songs to hear before you die.
@hottest100women let me know when you’re done and I’ll do a #hottest100women version of these #hottest100 charts http://bit.ly/1fW6v
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Hello,
I’d like to know if you could post the code you used at R to program the graphics in this post, because I need a graph like the one you did with the names of the songs but I don’t know how to do it.
Thanks so much
Carlos: I have been meaning to add this code to my github repository. I will do it as soon as possible.
The code for the charts is now in github.
i hate nirvana
i want to die