Comments on: Hottest 100 Reveals Chicks Can’t Play Music

By: event mechanics | In Defence of Triple J: Gender, Indie and the Burden of Cultural Inheritance

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 04:15:30 +0000

[...] My friend Mel Campbell writing for the awesomely titled The Enthusiast described it as an embarrassing shortcoming. Mel argues that there is a “danger [...] that people use these lists to create an imaginary [...]

By: One more thing about the Hottest 100 « The Dawn Chorus

One more thing about the Hottest 100 « The Dawn Chorus — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:42:45 +0000

[...] Town. Clem Bastow covered it for The Age, listing the women who did make it into the poll, while Mel Campbell, at The Enthusiast, worried that ‘the Hottest 100 also legitimises radio industry strategies that ignore [...]

By: Armchair

Armchair — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:29:15 +0000

On reflection, isn’t this a little like complaining that the chick-lit section at your local bookshop lacks male authors ? – It’s a reflection of the taste of a limited demographic and really doesn’t have a great deal of meaning beyond that (despite anything that marketers may choose to claim as part of any attempt to hype the “hottest 100” product) - So really, who cares ?

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:02:48 +0000

Mel, it seems a little unfair to lash out at the odd pedantic fan for correcting a fact, implying they are attacking you because you’re a female writer. I’m just guessing that a raving Toots-ophile would’ve set you straight if you were a feller too. “Sexist” is a harsh label to throw at someone, particularly when a simple “you need to get out more” would suffice.

But interesting article and debate.

By: stephen

stephen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:58:02 +0000

Interesting article and some thoughtful responses too. I’m a 40-plus JJJ listener (well that is the station that is most on in the car, that or ABC local radio), and you got me to go back and review my long-list that I did for the Hottest 100. The only solo female artists in the top 25 (a self imposed limit) were Madonna, Neko Case and Aretha Franklin, none of whom made my top 10. Sonic Youth, New Order, The Pogues (Kirsty MacColl) and The Go-Betweens were the bands in my top 10 songs that had females in them. I was a bit surprised by the overall make-up of the Hottest 100 - it seemed overly representative in some areas (90s, rock) and under-done in others (2000s, electronic/hip hop). I wonder what the breakdown of the 100 to 200 songs would have been like?

By: Armchair

Armchair — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 05:31:01 +0000

So posting “hairy legged lezzos” is out of order, but “15-25 year old man-boys” is ok… right….

By: Cam

Cam — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:51:17 +0000

Mel, if the wider point you want to make is that “people use these lists to create an imaginary musical landscape that subtly omits the contributions of women”, you haven’t.

There are any number of more likely explanations, including Mystikiel’s excellent point about brand loyalty, the fact that a bunch of real and very depressing social issues mean that women have been much less likely to make, or be able to make, the sort of music canonised in the JJJ outlook, and the possibility of vote splitting between songs by individual acts.

I absolutely agree that people will edit their favourites to make themselves look good, but there’s no reason to believe that would necessarily distort things in favour of male acts - there’s no shortage of embarrassing but delightful male pop - or that a bunch of individuals of both sexes would have any motive to do so.

In any event, women have made somewhere between 0 and 100% of the best records ever (my top 10 would include, at least, songs by Sleater-Kinney, the Shop Assistants and Laura Nyro), and perhaps you should be pushing the ones you feel are insufficiently recognised instead of abusing your correspondents.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:34:11 +0000

Sorry, I am the original Nick who pointed out you missed two prominent women (there are two Nicks on this thread). I did so not because I was using my “‘knowledge’ in an aggressive way to dominate debate” - but simply because you had missed out crediting two women who were important in shaping the sound of two very influential bands.

While getting the numbers wrong detracts from your point slightly, the position is still bad whether it is 5 bands or 3 bands and there is a very interesting discussion to be had around why that is the case. Personally, I lean towards a combination of a flawed survey methodology and the current JJJ audience not being born when the majority of us on this thread were first listening to the station.

By: Darragh

Darragh — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:09:06 +0000

Interesting discussion. I argued on my blog today that the gender of the musicians in the hottest 100 is irrelevant to whether a poll is sexist or not. Why does no one seem to think about the content of the songs in the poll itself?

Gender should not be a issue when it comes to what songs mean to different people. When compiling the list, I doubt the JJJ listener would have thought ‘oh I wonder what gender/race/class distinctions will be create when my ten votes are incorporated into the other millions of votes..”

As Roland Barthes infers in his famous essay “The Death of the Author”, the authors personality, idealogy or identity, and I would say gender, should not distract people from the message or emotions that make an individual song or album.

People should be looking at whether the songs themselves are sexist if they want to know whether Australian music lovers, particularly JJJ listeners are sexist, and not the gender of the musicians who make them.

By: Cassie

Cassie — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:32:26 +0000

I’m completely with Natasha, here. I wouldn’t say that I mostly listen to female artists, but the ones that I do listen to are not played on Triple J. Triple J has always seemed like a radio station that appealed to 15-25 year old man-boys who think they’re really getting into something deep and ‘alternative’ by listening to JJJ. The poll is only reflective of their listeners - and most people with a generally ‘broadened’ knowledge of music DON’T listen to JJJ.