Hummingbird 100 countdown

Before I get into this in any depth, in the interests of full disclosure, you should know I may be receiving some free beer from the wonderful women behind the Hummingbird 100. However, I haven't drunk any yet, and in my life I don't count my chickens before they're hatched, so be assured this post is written not having been bribed by alcohol - but after having spent an evening in the company of some excellent and well-listened women.

I'm a sucker for anyone who knows the Robert Downey Jnr Driving Naked While Throwing Imaginary Rats Out Of His Car story.

I'll boil it down for you quite simply:

The Hummingbird 100 countdown is sponsored by the company that brought us alcopops.

The countdown is being run by some seriously dedicated, music-mad women who are just as pissed off at JJJ as I am.

Alcopops and a beer that claims that women haven't had any beer made just for them, are not pinnacles of western culture. I like beer as it is. I don't believe we need special beer for women. I think we're capable of drinking Guinness, VB, Coopers, Little Creatures, Asahi - you name it.

The countdown is going to be BIG. It is going to generate interest in women's music.

And in beer.

The technology they're using to tally the votes - this is being paid for by beer. If I had received as many votes as they're going to - I couldn't have done the countdown. I would have needed a lot of help.

The kind of help provided by, you know, beer. Or, a dedicated team of passionate volunteers. Not necessarily beer.

But, in this case, beer.

And a hell of a lot of publicity, as orchestrated by people who know how these things work. And who know how to exploit the system to get recognition for women's music.

It's up to you, folks. Make your own judgement call. But, if you do decide to support the Hummingbird 100, get involved with it, just like you did with my countdown. Encourage your friends and family to vote. Post links on your blogs and Twitters. Join in the forums.

If you don't decide to support it, that's utterly and totally cool, and your choice. No judgement here. Love you all.

(And yes, it's possible I'm just so excited to be able to actually vote, since I barred myself from my own countdown.)

Brilliant UNIFEM benefit in Sydney

And before I forget - on Thursday 22nd October, at the Red Rattler Theatre in 6 Faversham st, Marrickville, UNIFEM are hosting a gig to raise money to help eradicate sexual violence and rape being used as weapons of war. Absolutely brilliant cause - and I believe the music is going to *ahem* RAWK, too. As the flier says - get loud, get cross, and get active.

Vote tampering at JJJ?

News Limited has run with a story today in The Australian, MX (here in Melbourne), Perth Now, and presumably a raft of its newspapers overall, about alleged vote tampering at JJJ in this year's Hottest 100 Of All Time. Specifically, Hack journalists re-analysed the votes and came up with results which were substantially different to the official results. They believe this suggests that results were tampered with, perhaps to ensure the final CD would sell well in stores. ABC Head of Radio Kate Dundas is quoted in The Australian as saying:

So the journalists did not have access to all the data and therefore the algorithm was wrong.

The journalists, James West and Kate O'Toole, apparently were using the base set of 487,000 votes, and were missing up to another 50,000 votes which were submitted outside of JJJ's pre-fab voting system.

Look, it's possible that those 50,000 votes juggled around the bottom, say, 50 songs, and some songs would have dropped out if the journos had included those votes. I saw something similar with my own poll - those bottom ranks are very perilous places to dwell, with lots of hungry, ambitious tunes seeking to knock you off by getting just one ... more ... vote! However, I find it highly unlikely that James and Kate felt they had uncovered something so significant, that would have been rectified by including only another 10%-odd more songs. It just doesn't seem statistically likely. But, until the ABC allow the story to go to air, we just won't know for sure, will we?

Here is the letter to the editor I just sent The Australian:

I'm actually a bit relieved to hear there are suspicions of tampered results with the Triple J Hottest 100 Of All Time. As a big fan of a range of artists, including women, it was so disappointing to see that almost no women appeared in the entire countdown. To think that they may have been edited out to make way for men - well, it's also disappointing, but it does give me renewed faith in the Triple J audience. While we wait for Triple J to release this updated set of results, readers may enjoy listening to the results of another poll, run in the weeks after Triple J's - the Hottest 100 Women Of All Time. This countdown is made up entirely of songs by female artists, as voted by Australians online at Twitter and Facebook. I gathered over 7,000 votes over 4 weeks, and the final countdown can be found (and listened along to) at http://hottest100women.blogspot.com. Hopefully Triple J's next Hottest 100 Of All Time countdown will include more of the songs that appeared in my final Hottest 100.

On radio, yet again!

Okay, the excellent Karen of Joy 94.9 FM has invited me to be on her show this Wednesday 12-2pm. I heartily recommend you all listen along - Joy does wonderful work as Australia's only gay and lesbian radio station, and did their own little non-JJJ countdown this year (though I can't find any record of it online - help please?) considering how straight JJJ's countdown was.

So I'm going to be schmoozing with Karen about the Hottest100Women experience (it should really be called Hottest110Women, shouldn't it?), and we'll be playing some of the most excellent music ever - HEY, AS VOTED BY YOU!!!

Rawr, etc.

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

Okay, so, this song is just a little bit strange. Someone wanted to know who sung it (and, I assume, why it had that title!), so I've dug up some information.

It was recorded originally by Klaatu (yes, like Klaatu Baradu Nictu, you crazy sci-fi fans) in 1976 - and I'm not sure if it's tongue-in-cheek, or just faintly wacky. But it's something to do with *ahem* contacting aliens.

Now, the Carpenters covered it in 1977, and again, I have no clue whether irony was a deciding factor in this big career step of theirs. Honestly people, I really have no idea wtf is going on with this song.



Christopher Johnson from Facebook, you voted for this - you owe us all an explanation!