1998 Was Such A Strong Time For Aus Music, So Why Is This The Hottest 100 Revote Result?

So the Hottest 100 recount of 1998 was run and won – again – by The Offspring. We’re stuck once more with the mammoth Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) being the #1 song for that year (uh-huh, uh-huh). Hell, even The Offspring themselves wanted you to vote for someone else. Some songs we just can’t shake, hey?

But a look at the recount reveals a disturbing statistic from voters – the Aussies in the list were boned. From a quality seven Australian acts in the top ten (the first time in the yearly Hottest 100 locals had outnumbered internationals), it’s down to three. The only constant was Regurgitator, who managed to stay strong (and in fact move up four places) with ! (Song Formerly Known As) from their all-conquering Unit album. 

Into the list come Josh Abrahams & Amiel Daemion with Addicted To Bass and TISM’s Whatareya?. But gone now are such storied Australian acts You Am I, Powderfinger, Jebediah and The Living End. Custard and Ben Lee also dropped out of the top ten, but let’s be honest, Girls Like That (Don’t Go For Guys Like Us) and Cigarettes Will Kill You respectively haven’t aged that well.

It’s weird because 1998 was such a strong time for Australian music. What was then termed independent or alternative rock was on the ascendance, riding on the wave that grunge had created earlier in the decade, as well as the continuing expansion of triple j as it pushed further and further into regional areas on the way to becoming a truly national station. 

The live scene was thriving with bands being able to make a living on the touring circuit. In the absence of the Big Day Out that year, Homebake stepped up and held its own as an east coast festival featuring the likes of the aforementioned Powderfinger, Jebediah and You Am I amongst many others (including long gone but fondly remembered acts like Big Heavy Stuff, Pollyanna and more). 

Yes, it sounds like a little bit like an Abe Simpson’s “I tied an onion to my belt” rambling story, but it’s true. It was the time of not only those mentioned above, but throw in the likes of fellow original 1998 Hottest 100 inclusions The Superjesus, Grinspoon, The Mavis’s, Frenzal Rhomb, The Whitlams and so many more, and you have a pretty healthy state of Australian music at the time.

Have we forgotten what a great time it was to be alive? Sure, Powderfinger weren’t quite the Hottest 100 juggernaut they would become (topping the poll the following two years), but The Day You Come marked the emergence of what was a behemoth of the Australian rock scene for the next decade. 

Jebediah’s Harpoon was a tender moment from a band that had landed with a splash with their upbeat, poppy inclined rock (fun fact – Something For Kate’s version of the song landed at #85 that year, the first time two versions of the one song had ended up in the countdown). And You Am I’s Heavy Heart contains one of the best lines in a love song ever as Tim Rogers laments, “I miss you like sleep”.

So why have these songs and others been absent from the recount? Do they not still have the same resonance as 1998? Sure, you wouldn’t expect the likes of Bran Van 3000, Marcy Playground, South Park’s Chef and – thank god – Adam Sandler’s Somebody Kill Me to make a re-appearance, but You Am I only as recently as last week played Heavy Heart at their Taronga Zoo show, so they (and their fans for that matter), still feel so. Because Powderfinger have been not been an ongoing concern for nearly a decade are they consigned to the annals of history only?

But let’s look at what’s edged the Aussies out in this revisionist history – mostly, nu metal and industrial-lite courtesy of Rob Zombie, Rage Against The Machine and Marilyn Manson (weirdly though, original #5 and nu-metal progenitor Korn were nowhere to be seen this time around). How has that stood the test of time? Most of these acts haven’t been relevant since about the mid-noughties. 

Rob Zombie’s best solo song probably is indeed Dragula, but definitely not worthy of the pointy end of ‘98. Marilyn Manson’s The Beautiful People deserved its place in the 1997 top ten, but The Dope Show probably shouldn’t have those vibes rub off on it to now get in the top ten for 1998. And Rage’s No Shelter was just a one-off single for a movie soundtrack, probably not in the pantheon of their other protest songs. 

The genre usually gets a bump when acts appear on a festival line-up, but the staying power here is mystifying. It was fun while it lasted in the late-‘90s, but we don’t need it now. Plus, don’t even get me started on Metallica’s inclusion in the top ten. Unforgiven II isn’t even their best song that would have been eligible in 1998, let alone one of the best of the year full stop. And this is even coming from a fan. (For those up the back wondering, it’s the frenetic Fuel).

Maybe we just have to thank orchestrated social media campaigns for this new list, or, like every poll, there are probably people sitting there now going, "Oh, dangit, I forgot about that song…" – something that usually happens to this writer every time when our writers' polls come up. Or maybe like Won’t You Be My Neighbor? astoundingly missing out on an Oscar nomination (when it won damn near every prize on offer in the lead up), the thought might have been that surely someone else would vote for Powderfinger or You Am I and then people nominated a different track.

So what was just a publicity stunt to try and bump The Offspring from #1 (and failed spectacularly – or did you really think it still deserves to be #1?) has instead revealed that people have forgotten an important part of our musical past.