Is Australia's beloved punk band Amyl and the Sniffers' 'Maggot' too explicit to win Triple J's Hottest 100?
The Hottest 100 , Triple J ’s annual music countdown of its listeners’ favorite songs of the year, is a national institution. The “world’s greatest musical democracy” has become as iconic of modern Australiana as Russell Coight and Lee Lin Chin. Yet, some worry that Australia’s musical flagship is in danger of losing its identity. This year’s Hottest 100 looks likely to again be dominated by international megastars. Kendrick Lamar’s scorching take-down of Drake now sits as the favorite.
Charli XCX will no doubt rank highly after the world was swept up in Brat summer. Ditto her fellow alt-pop queens Billie Eilish and Chappell Roan. All deserve their place. It would be nice to see the Hottest 100 return to its roots. And nothing would be a more fitting choice than Australia’s resident punk deviants, Amyl and the Sniffers. Their song 'Maggot' is a supercharged bulldozer powered by illegal fireworks. It’s dirty, scrappy, defiant and super fun – a punk song for modern times. 'Maggot' faces a steep uphill battle to secure top position. While no song is better equipped for a fight, everything that would make it the perfect Hottest 100 winner also renders it an unlikely one. It would be the first hard rock song to win since 2007, it would have to triumph over some of the world’s biggest stars, oh, and it’s a flamethrower of outrageously explicit insults that kicks off with a c-bomb and never lets up. Amyl and the Sniffers have established themselves as one of the country’s most beloved rock bands and the torchbearers of Australian punk – following a rich lineage of Aussie punk giants from the Saints and Radio Birdman to Cosmic Psychos and the Hard-Ons, to the first Australian Hottest 100 winner, Spiderbait (with 1996’s ‘Buy Me a Pony’). 'Maggot' is everything a great Aussie punk song should be – short, fast, loud, and all the way up in your face. It’s a thundering two minutes of tongue-in-cheek vitriol. Fuelled by a gargantuan Metallica-like riff, Amy Taylor sneers and spits with sardonic venom, belligerent and hilarious in equal measure. The song is the musical equivalent of a pit bull terrier – short but massive, aggressive but lovable, impossible to ignore. It packs the kind of infectious killer chorus that seizes a crowd by its nether regions and demands to be shouted. It must be chanted, bellowed, screeched, fist-pumping deliriously in the air. It’s a communal experience both cathartic and terrifyingly involuntary – like an exorcism, but a fun one. Unfortunately for the Sniffers (as well as the stalwart headbangers among us), there has been an increasing dearth of hard rock in the top echelon of the Hottest 100. Only two hard rock songs have made the top 10 since Muse won with 'Knights of Cydonia' in 2007. But the larger issue is likely to be that while Amyl and the Sniffers are popular, they are certainly not populist. 'Maggot' is a bold, uncompromising screed, blazing with righteous fury and the kind of language that would make old sailors blush and faint dramatically (cue Helen Lovejoy crying, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”). It’s not one for subtlety or nuance – I mean, it’s called 'Maggot'. It drops c-bombs with abandon, and hurls insults like Molotov cocktails. It’s not just ruffling feathers – it’s setting them on fire. It would be the most explicit Hottest 100 winner of all time, cantering ahead of Kendrick’s 2017 stomper ‘HUMBLE.’ 'Maggot' is an absolute banger by one of Australia’s most modern and entertaining rock bands. That will be enough to ensure it is up in the mix come January 25. It’s a hell of an underdog to win the Hottest 100 – but it certainly won’t pull any punches
MUSIC AUSTRALIA HOTTEST 100 AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS MAGGOT PUNK ROCK Triple J
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