Now on to entry #4 of my attempt to review every song in every Triple JJJ Hottest 100, from 1993 to the present day (not counting the first few, which were beautiful catalogues of classic alternative music taken from multiple different years, and which tended to repeatedly leave the same songs clustered toward the top each year). This is is a response to the cyclical whinge about the Hottest 100 having lost the plot at some vague point in the distant past (usually since the mid-90s - my vote would be between 1997 and 1998). The idea is that by actually examining each song in detail, I would learn more about the cultural moment and general range of music when many of us believed the Hottest 100 to be actually good, and also about my own tastes and the degree to which they may or may not be informed/affected by nostalgia.
So far in this series, I have been both positively surprised by the depth and variety of music in 1993's countdown, with more reggae than I remember being on the radio during the period and a lot of interesting alternative rock (like #71 on the last post). However, there has also been an unfortunately sizeable contingent of unpleasantly of-its-time pop-EDM, and a Cruel Sea, if you will, of soft, upbeat alt rock, comprised of various shades of creamy beige mediocrity. What exactly did twenty-something Gen Xers get out of this, I've often found myself thinking, while trying to regurgitate a couple of paragraphs about some proto-indie R&B-rock zephyr that blew in and out in less than three minutes, like a splash of acid rain on a carpark somewhere in Adelaide. And also: will anyone actually read this, apart from the struggling indie musicians from the list in question, who are now in their fifties and sixties and have a bandcamp, trying to remind contemporary audiences of their existence while probably working as a SOSE teacher in high school or something?
70: "Sleepy Head (Serene Machine)" - Ed Kuepper
This is a good, deep, melodic indie rock song. I would put it a couple of notches ahead of the standard indie rock I've covered in this series so far, mainly because its tone actually has depth and isn't completely flat and upbeat, and also because (perhaps as a consequence) I actually enjoy listening to it. I've never heard much by Kuepper before, or from the Saints, and Sleepy Head is a pleasant surprise. His slightly off-key singing voice reminds me of the affectations in a lot of indie rock from the early 2010s, but there's more depth and heart-feeling in his delivery here. It doesn't feel put on. Lyrically, there doesn't seem to be much going on here, just some embittered ruminations directed at an ex, maybe some vague sociopolitical commentary. He sings about "sweet talkers with gems for eyes" and "two cent friends with their pretend faith." There's enough cynicism to give the song depth, but it's vague enough to keep the general tone of the song cerebral.
