daine ProfileThe Music chooses one song every week as its Power Pick, shining a light on ONE Aussie song that we think has the potential to be the next big Australian chart hit.
Our Power Pick committee consists of Richard Kingsmill (consultant and former triple j Group Music Director), Maddy Rowe (Nova nights announcer), Nic Kelly (Hit Network nights announcer), Ash McGregor (host of Listen Up with Ash McGregor), Kathy McCabe (News Corp National Music Writer), Brenton Larney (co-host of Breaking Through Podcast), Triana Butler (host of The Sound of Now on Joy 94.9), Matty Morris (Super Radio Network nights announcer), and Matt O’Gorman (Triple M Homegrown host).
The Power Pick team had to dig deep to find details on the team behind this one, but non-binary Melbourne pop star daine gets the flowers this week. Emerging in 2020 and catching the attention of Charli XCX who became their mentor, daine speaks openly about their lived experiences with autism, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and POTS, actively advocating for inclusive environments at live music spaces.
With their early tracks leaning heavily on autotune and establishing a signature style, daine made the bold choice to go autotune-free for their debut studio album In Endless Awe and Agony, which dropped on Friday. While the Power Pick panel generally goes for new tracks, in this case they’ve gone back to June and daine’s track PQC. It’s a clear standout on the record and has had over three million spins on Spotify, but very little push into the mainstream. If they are going to cross over to a mainstream audience — and they should — this will be the one to do it.
Power Pick panellist Triana Butler from JOY 94.9's The Sound of Now" said: “daine has twelve sold-out shows across Australia and the US between now and the end of the year, and they're backing it up with an appearance at Laneway in February. There's every chance that by the time Laneway rolls around, they're one of the biggest drawcards on the lineup.”
“The support behind PQC is still building online — it's a standout single, and off the back of the album In Endless Awe and Agony, now is the perfect time to consider this song for your playlist. If there's a daine hype train, I'm the daine hype train driver — get me an important-looking hat and a train whistle!”
