Today I decided to vote in the Triple J Hottest 100. However, for the first year since I started participating in this young-Australian tradition, I was hesitant. 

It seems to be almost a rite of passage for every young Australian music lover to cast their votes in the Triple J Hottest 100. From the age of about 16, you become aware of the station, it’s championing of Australian artists and want to get involved. 

Then, at some stage, you stop participating. Many say it’s because you outgrow Triple J and its output. Triple J even said this in a tweet back in August 2021, asking the world, “did it hurt when you aged out of the youth radio station?”

This tweet did spark a deeper conversation about ageism and sexism in Australian music, a discussion writer Poppy Reid fleshed out incredibly in an article for The Industry Observer, but whilst voting in the Hottest 100 this year, I’ve realised that there’s another problem Triple J needs to address.

I love Australian music, I always have. I’ll also admit that I am bias against artists specifically from south-east Queensland. Some of my favourite Australian artists are Golden Vessel, daste., Squidgenini, FELIVAND Lucky Idiot and Akurei. These artists all released incredible work in 2021, however none of them were included in the voting list for the Hottest 100. 

I do understand that you can add artists into your Hottest 100 votes who aren’t already listed in the Hottest 100 voting database. I know you can import a Spotify playlist and have it include all of the artists you like that you may not have found using the voting search function, but this is the thing. I shouldn’t have to do that. 

I shouldn’t have to add in a song from an Australian artist, while Olivia Rodrigo has her entire EP sitting front and centre, ready to be voted for. I get that people enjoyed it, heck, I really enjoyed listening to ‘SOUR’, but why is an American artist’s EP available to be voted for, while Young Franco, who released 5 new tracks in 2021, only has two?

Triple J is known as the national youth radio station and has always said “we love Australian music”.

So why is it so difficult for Australian music to be heard? 

On their website, Triple J say they “We love music made in bedrooms and garages by musicians we’ve never heard of.” So why are there so many songs by Halsey available to be voted for in the Hottest 100? We’ve heard of Halsey; they’ve been releasing music for years. 

I think the idea of discovering new music has slowly dwindled. The artists Triple J features are now artists that yes, they discovered and featured before they made it big internationally (hello, Billie Eilish), but now, despite their international audience and newfound celebrity, Triple J still grants them as much airtime as they did back when those artists were still considered “unknown”. Why not, instead of allowing people to vote for an entire Billie Eilish album, give people the opportunity to vote for one song by Banoffee, who also released an album in 2021?

Andrew P. Street explained in an article he wrote for NME in response to Triple J’s controversial tweet, that there are a lot of Australian artists who have felt excluded by Triple J. 

Emma Swift, a country musician from New South Wales also responded to the tweet on her own Twitter account saying, “I did an audit of the last 20 tweets of a certain station and – no surprise – hardly any Australians mentioned – and even fewer women. 

“7 tweets were just about Kanye West. I didn't realise we had a government funded stan account. Another tweet was just roasting artists for having the audacity to age. 

“I’m very out of touch with most trends in music. But I'm pretty connected with the very real struggles of Australian musicians. We need our public broadcaster to do better.”

Triple J are major tastemakers in Australian music and many musicians know it’s a big deal to be added to the station’s regular rotation. But when Triple J chooses to focus more heavily on international megastars instead of their own local musicians, it makes you wonder who the station is really catering to. 

Are they catering to young Australians, or just the young? Is everyone over the age of 25 just supposed to defer to Double J? If you want to listen to new undiscovered Australian musicians, do you just have to listen to Unearthed? Or should you just ditch Triple J and radio altogether and explore new Australian music on your own?

Whilst writing this, I can’t help but think about the GRAMMYs. This year, despite being together since 2010 and releasing their first album in 2014, Glass Animals were nominated for a GRAMMY in the Best New Artist category. The GRAMMYs have an odd tradition of calling well-established artists ‘new’, with KAYTRANADA being nominated for the same award in 2021, despite releasing his first album in 2016. 

To me, Triple J’s idea of ‘new’ music is the same.

Instead of playing music from an artist just breaking into the Australian music scene, they choose to play new releases from well-established artists who have been around for years. Yet, they still pride themselves on playing ‘new’ music and discovering ‘new’ artists. 

It is still new music, technically speaking, but its newly released music by extremely well-known and established artists. If Triple J chooses to play six newly released Kanye West songs over just one song by an up-and-coming Australian artist, then what is there to differentiate them from every other radio station in Australia? How are they different if they’re playing the same Post Malone songs as all the commercially funded stations? 

I think there are many reasons why some people deviate from Triple J. For some, it’s because they play music by artists they don’t know. For others, it’s because their favourite genre of music isn’t represented enough. Some people stop listening simply because they cut away radio altogether, opting to just listen to their own curated playlists on Spotify. 

For me, personally, I deviated away from Triple J because I feel they don’t champion Australian musicians as much as they should be. If they love Australian music, they should be adding more Australian artists to their rotation and to the Hottest 100 voting list.

An international artist may win the Triple J Hottest 100 this year and it’ll be partly because the young Australians Triple J cater to, didn’t hear as many Australian artists being played on the radio as they should have. 

I’ll still celebrate Hottest 100 day. Drink beers with friends and take advantage of the sunshine (if it sticks around), I just won’t be voting.