Second Comes Right Before First: The Best Runners-up In Hottest 100 History

Australia loves a good runner-up.

We placed second at Eurovision, and everyone lost their minds with pride. We come second in a lot of two-team sports, and that doesn't matter. And, more than a decade after the fact, people still won't shut up about Shannon Noll and Australian Idol.

It should come as little surprise, then, that some really sensational and significant songs have had to settle for second place in the annual Hottest 100 over the years. Maybe we didn't want them getting too big for their boots. Maybe, on the odd occasion, they really were beaten out by a superior song. But by and large, it's not because these tracks are silver-medal standard. No, sir. In fact, several of these tunes have had much broader and longer-lasting impacts than those for whom they made way.

So, while everyone's focusing on who'll grab #1, let us remember the Buzz Aldrins of the Hottest 100. Without them, there could be no victors.

Radiohead — Creep

1993

This song lost to Denis Leary's Asshole, and there is no amount of explanation or rumination that can wash away that shame. Sure, Asshole is a fun song and all, but we'd wager that it's probably been a while since you last heard someone mention Denis Leary's influence on their musical journey.

Creep is far from Radiohead's best work, but its role in shaping young, impressionable alternative minds over the past two-plus decades is irrefutable.

Nine Inch Nails — Closer

1994

NIN's seminal track earned its place between The Cranberries' Zombie and The Offspring's Self Esteem, both of which are kind incredible and culturally significant songs in their own right, now that we're writing this. So this one is really more about acknowledging the strength across the board in the top three in 1994.

Top four, if you include Come Out & Play, also by The Offspring. Shit, 1994 was a great year.

The Smashing Pumpkins — Bullet With Butterfly Wings

1995

It might seem, at this point, like we're just going through every year of the Hottest 100 and claiming that the runner-up was better than the winner (not an inaccurate assessment, to be fair), but 1995's result is a pretty crystalline demonstration of how the Hottest 100 can tend to reward inoffensive but hugely catchy tunes (Oasis' Wonderwall) over musically more-substantive but admittedly less accessible efforts.

To reiterate: nobody is assailing the credentials of Wonderwall as a mainstream success. The song was massive, and rightly so. It is kind of boring though; be honest with yourself.

Either way, both Wonderwall and Bullet With Butterfly Wings are now routinely trotted out as meme fodder, so it probably doesn't matter in the long run.

Blur — Song 2

1997

See, we're not just doing every year. (For those interested, 1996's #2 was Tool's Stinkfist, but being that it was also the year that Spiderbait became the first Australian act to top the list, with Buy Me A Pony, it didn't seem right to question that victory.)

Oh, hey, it was literally called "Song 2" and it came in second place. Life, right?

Anyway, this enduring Britpop anthem was beaten out to the top spot by The Whitlams' No Aphrodisiac, which is an excellent song in its own right, and arguably undoes what we were saying just before about musical intelligence being anathema to a Hottest 100 victory. Fuck.

Whatever, here's the song anyway.

Killing Heidi — Weir

1999

End-of-last-century victors Powderfinger are icons for plenty of reasons, but let's not pretend like These Days was their most engaging material (they also won the Hottest 100 in 2000, with the far superior My Happiness, and had previously placed in the top 10 a couple of times, including for the excellent The Day You Come). So please understand: Powderfinger were very good, but These Days was a bit… let's say… drawn out.

Weir, however, is a national treasure and should be included in every Smash Hits compilation until the heat death of the universe. Don't @ us.

OutKast — Hey Ya!

2003

There's nothing inherently wrong with Jet or their inescapable (for them) Are You Gonna Be My Girl?, which took the top spot in 2003's countdown. It's an upbeat, rocky earworm that did exceptional business and served them very well in their prime, probably landing them all sorts of lovely residuals in the form of sync deals and other arrangements in the process.

That doesn't change the fact that Hey Ya! is (arguably) a better song, though.

Even if it wasn't, we'd probably try to argue that it was, just to find an excuse to give its video clip a run again, because that's definitely better than Jet's at any rate.

Art Vs Science — Parlez-Vous Francais?

2009

2009 was a weird time. This was, for those who don't remember, getting towards the peak of the indie-folk resurgence of the late 2000s, as encapsulated by Mumford & Sons' victory with Little Lion Man.

It was also the year that Bluejuice's infectious but essentially ridiculous Broken Leg made the top five, so, look, we were all going through some stuff, obviously.

Art Vs Science's Parlez-vous Francais? is one of the few songs from that time that doesn't instantly sound like 2009. There's a weirdly hard-to-pinpoint timelessness — well, general 21st-century-ness — to the track, perhaps the result of its use of electronic, rock, hip hop and other elements to escape being tacked to a particular zeitgeist.

Whatever it is, long after Mumford & Songs ditched the banjos and Bluejuice broke up, this is still a great song.

Lorde — Royals

2013

Sure, she was ultimately pipped by Vance Joy's ubiquitous Riptide — a song that has objectively cleaned up around the world — but it's worth remembering how swift and massive an ascent Lorde experienced following her inclusion in the 2013 Splendour In The Grass festival.

Buoyed by Tennis Court and this tune, she immediately went from nascent triple j darling to certified star pretty much in the space of a few months, and she's not looked back since.

Oh, also? She beat out Daft Punk and Pharrell. Come on.

Kendrick Lamar — King Kunta

2015

Remember when Kendrick Lamar's evocative, provocative opus King Kunta took a back seat to The Rubens?

Yeah, we've blocked it out too, Hoops and everything.

Hunters & Collectors — Throw Your Arms Around Me

'All Time' — 1998, 1990, 1989

An honourable mention must go to iconic outfit Hunters & Collectors, who nabbed the #2 spot with evergreen 1985 cut Throw Your Arms Around Me in three separate "Hottest 100 of all time" countdowns: in 1989 and 1990, when the actual competition itself was open to entries from every year, and again in 1998, for that year's "best ever" retrospective. (It also placed fourth in 1991's countdown, also open to all years.)

It may not have technically been released during the lifetime of the Hottest 100, but that hasn't stopped it from being runner-up to both Joy Division (1989, 1990) and Nirvana (1998) — and outranking contenders such as The Smiths, New Order, R.E.M., Dead Kennedys, The Cure, Pearl Jam, Jeff Buckley, Led Zeppelin, and even Queen.

Best #2 ever? Best #2 ever.

The 2017 Hottest 100 will be broadcast on triple j tomorrow, 26 January.