Hey, Triple J: Shake It Off

Remember when you were in your teens and early twenties and you were quite the Indie / Goth / Folk/ Punk/ Metal aficionado?

You’d lie around for hours, listening to lo-fi bootlegs that you’d burnt onto some crappy CD-R’s. Despite these tracks having no clear tune, audible lyrics or, well, anything that really distinguished them as songs, you’d be all “Yeah, this is totally what music is about. It just speaks to my tortured soul.”

Then you’d close your eyes, lie back, and pontificate on how profound Garden State was as a piece of filmmaking and how Zach Braff, standing against a wallpaper that matched his shirt, was a mind-blowing metaphor for how misunderstood your generation was, how unique you are, how your parents are idiots, how Uni sucks and how you should have been living in Greenwich Village in 1962.

Meanwhile you’d dismiss and cringe at friends who liked to listen to Destiny’s Child and Justin Timberlake, because they’re just so mainstream and “Urgh, pop”.

You know how most of us outgrew that miserable attitude by our mid-twenties’?

Unfortunately, it seems that the team over at Triple J have yet to reach that same level of maturity.

As you may have heard, Triple J has banished Taylor Swift from their annual Hottest 100 list.

Each year, alt Aussie radio station, Triple J runs a poll where listeners nominate their favourite track of the year. Then on Australia Day, the Hottest 100 is announced and, oh I dunno, maybe Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue get presented with a cake, or something?

In my teens, purchasing the annual Hottest 100 compilation on CD was a big deal (always a double disk, always a full $34.95 and the jewel case insert was always very broken). I discovered a lot of great artists through those mixes, and as a result I’ve always held the Hottest 100 with affectionate nostalgia.

It was always a reliable list, because the entire basis of it was that listeners got to vote for what *they* liked. Not the station managers. Not the DJ’s. Not the label executives. Just us.

This year many, many, people wanted to vote for Taylor Swift. And who could blame them? Her fifth studio album, ‘1989’, was one of the best of 2014. I defy anyone to claim that ‘Shake It Off’ or ‘Blank Space’ were not bloody great songs.

However Triple J have put their foot down and said a resounding “NO” to Swift featuring. Their reasoning being that as she didn’t appear on the station playlist, she’s not eligible. Which is funny, considering that in previous years’ U2’s ‘Elevation’ and Green Day’s ‘Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)’ both made it onto the Hottest 100, despite neither being on the playlists or being given any airtime. Geez, nice one, Bono.

What’s the deal, Triple J? How about giving your audience what they want? Have you not heard of Spotify, iTunes, Last FM, Soundcloud or Pandora? Are you THAT spoilt for revenue and listeners that you can afford to ignore and, frankly, piss them off?

By denying their listeners what they want (and believe me, they want Swift, they’ve even petitioned for her to feature) Triple J come across as the sulky music snobs that we used to be, but left behind, years ago.

I used to be that snob. So caught up in my Beck B-Sides, analysing the meaning of every Smiths lyric, sneering and flipping the bird at anything mainstream that dared to pollute my miserable air space.

However in the summer of 2003 something magical happened. I was travelling in a van, with a group, when someone’s mixed-CD threw up a song so melodic, joyous, catchy and utterly, goddamn, toe tappingly, delicious that I couldn’t help but look up from my copy of Q Magazine (PROBABLE HEADLINE: ‘Liam Gallagher Calls Jack White a Talentless Bumwipe’) and mutter five words that I never thought I’d say about a chart song: “Actually. This is quite good.”

*GASP*

That song was Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya!’, and in those glorious three minutes, I was a changed and enlightened person. I had finally been able to admit to liking pop music, and guess what?! The ground didn’t swallow me up!

Anyone who goes through adolescence with music being their niche, their best friend, their salvation from unpopularity has to experience this sooner or later. The moment of surrender where we learn to throw our arms up in the air and admit that, actually, it’s okay to like what’s popular. It’s part of growing up and no longer caring about being part of certain scene, or of what our peers think.

It’s like in the last episode of Freaks and Geeks where Daniel admits that he’d rather play Dungeons and Dragons than get high in a parking lot.

Many of us had our own Taylor Swift epiphanies last year.

If you’d have told me, at the start of 2014, that I’d be spending a lot of time on Twitter preaching about how happy Shake It Off makes me feel, or that I’d be pre-ordering ‘1989’ on vinyl, I’d have rolled my eyes. That act itself, of purchasing her album on LP, says it all. When the often intimidating “everything sounds better on vinyl” crowd starts lining up for a hit of Tay-Tay, well you should know that she’s entered new territory.

And why not? Swift is nothing to be sniffed at. She writes her own material, tours constantly, runs an impeccable PR machine, and if you didn’t cry at any of the coverage over Christmas, then I feel very sorry for your cold and blackened heart. I hope, that someday, you can let love in.

Yet all that aside, by denying Taylor Swift, Triple J is denying great songs. The thrill, the joy, the buzz, the whole cussing point of music – regardless of genre, artist, or era – is to be able to listen to a song and say “Shit, that’s good!”

It’s as simple as that.

So hey Triple J. Enjoy skulking in your bedroom, with the curtains drawn, walls covered in tatty My Bloody Valentine posters, smelling faintly of Lynx Africa. The rest of us will be outside in the sun, with glitter through our hair, pissed on Mimosa’s, laughing, pashing and waggling our arses to Shake-It-Off.

Come join us when you quit being such a dick. We’d love to see you.