Tom Ballard is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, author, and former Triple J /ABC TV presenter. He graciously gave me some time aside from promoting his first book recently, to sit outside in the freezing dark and give his perspective on Triple J’s Hottest 100 of Like A Version as a presenter of the segment for nearly four years. We discussed some of his favourite Like A Versions, how his engagement with the station has changed since he left, navigating impartiality in a broadly shifting media landscape, and how to draw the line on playing American commercial pop artists on Triple J.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: From your time presenting the segment, do any Live A Versions still stand out to you as favourites from in the studio?
Tom: Yeah, I mean a bunch really. Dirty Projectors covering Usher was amazing. It was a difficult interview but the music was so good. *Who cares about the interview anyway?* Everyone just wants the song, that was really remarkable.
I think Regina Spektor doing Radiohead really stands out.
Ben Folds doing Kesha was big just because I’m a massive Ben Folds fan, so the chance to just see him was incredible.
And selfishly, the version of Green Day that a bunch of folks did, bit of a super group they got together for my final show, that moved me a lot, so that was delightful.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: Do you plan to vote in the countdown?
Tom: Yeah, I had a bit of a chat with one of the producers ahead of time and sort of ran through some of my favourites. It just started unlocking a bunch of memories and then I started to think about all the ones I loved from before I even worked there, like Ben Folds’ Such Great Heights, and Temper Trap, so yeah, I should definitely vote.
In the earlier years of the segment, it was quite rare for a cover to take on popularity of its own and reach beyond the usual audience of the station. Such Great Heights is one such example, so when it was revealed in the lead up to the July 15 Hottest 100 of Like A Version countdown that only three recorded before 2012 were going to appear, it seemed like a shoe-in alongside Regina Spektor – Real Love, and The Herd – I Was Only 19. Instead, we got The Kooks – Kids right out of the gate at #100, immediately followed by Real Love, while The Herd popped up much later, suggesting Ben Folds may have only just missed out.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: It’s been nearly a decade since you presented there, most of the people who you worked with have moved on as well. So you still have a bit of a relationship with Triple J?
Tom: Yeah, I didn’t know this person, I guess it was a fresh face, young dude. Exactly the kind of people who should be working at Triple J. Yeah, he was clearly working on putting together content for the countdown and I was happy to oblige.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: So do you still listen to the station?
Tom: I don’t listen heaps, I must say, don’t listen to any radio at all basically. I listen to podcasts, *so much God-damn content*. I’m also just not up early enough to listen to breakfast that often. I do listen to Zan Rowe’s Take Five, which I know is Double J. I love that, Zan’s a really good friend and her content is always brilliant. They let me on Triple J sometimes to promote my stuff, which is very kind. But it’s not for me. I’m supposed to be bitter and say — *everything changed the day I left and it all went to shit!*
W.B.T.G. Slinger: With Like A Version in particular, if you’re not really listening to the radio broadcast, do you see them on YouTube? It’s a segment that has led the shift onto digital platforms.
Tom: Yeah, pretty much every Friday. Just through the nature of the stuff I like, you’re always finding out exactly who’s covering what. I do listen to the Hottest 100 and get across that, and it’s been remarkable how many Like a Versions have been entering the Hottest 100 in recent years. Like clearly, they’re tracks that really hit nerves.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: That’s my next question actually. The Wiggles had the first Like a Version to win the countdown for 2020. That was really made out by some as this big turning point for Like A Version and for the Hottest 100.
Tom: Right…
W.B.T.G. Slinger: Or do you recognise that comedy and novelty have always been a big part of both?
Tom: *Yes*. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the classic piece of wisdom of course, is a number one song just has to be in lots of people’s top 10. Like it may be that this isn’t the song that I’d go and listen to on repeat, but for a much larger number of people, it is a song that really defined the year, that stood out, something that people enjoyed. The novelty impact, the level of goodwill for Triple J, it was a very cool cover, it was funny, all of those combined I think put it into the number one spot.
Yes, I mean what else have we had, Asshole? Pretty Fly For a White Guy? Novelty songs have played a huge role on Triple J, and that’s awesome. I mean, even just deliberate comedy songs, songs from absolute weirdos that you’ll never hear on any kind of top 40 radio station can find an audience on Triple J and I think that’s delightful.
As much as I love Triple J and did get obsessed with the Hottest 100 when I worked there and even before as a teenager, I still think people probably take it a *little* bit too seriously. You’re allowed to listen to whatever song you like, the Hottest 100 doesn’t determine what you have to listen to for the next year so people should just keep that in mind.
With South Park songs, Adam Sandler, and even the Team America theme, novelty music on Triple J was the elephant in the room long before The Wiggles ever graced the Like A Version studio. Their Tame Impala cover landed at #10 in this countdown, a relatively modest position for a past winner, that well represents its impact and popularity. The appearance of ‘novelty’ in the rest of the countdown was actually rather light-on. A key element in viral popularity is an accompanying visual element, which of course The Wiggles used to great effect. This impact can be seen with other more visually focused appearances such as G Flip – Lady Marmalade (#22), Confidence Man – Heaven (#67), and most of all, Flume – Shooting Stars (#16):
W.B.T.G. Slinger: The ABC is always under scrutiny for its presenters representing personal opinions. Do you think social media has played a role or deserves any blame in breaching that kind of professional standard regarding impartiality?
Tom: It’s tricky, right? Because my immediate reaction is, at least in my role when I was at Triple J, I felt my job was to be funny and entertaining. But having said that, we interviewed politicians, like we did actually have to interview the Prime Minister. We had political figures on and occasionally just by the nature of being a broadcast that’s on live radio, we occasionally had to do proper ‘broadcasting stuff’. So to say that we were completely away from politics just isn’t necessarily true, and in the course of doing a joke, you might put out your personal opinions. I think the ABC bias question really should be rooted in news and current affairs, I think that’s really important. I think they should take the bias, or the positions of comedians far less seriously, honestly. Because if you’re doing comedy, you can’t present balanced comedy, that’s sort of a meaningless term, it doesn’t really mean much. As long as the balance and independence is rooted in the news and current affairs division you’re probably on to a pretty good thing. You know, the public broadcaster has this place for people’s personal, artistic expression and the people making that art should be able to express themselves as they wish. Now, the ABC should also do a good job of engaging artists from across the political spectrum to make lots of stuff, I think that’s probably a healthier ABC too.
*Um*, I mean everyone should get off Twitter, even journalists! Everyone! It should be set on fire, it’s making us a worse species.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: So much the same for TikTok?
Tom: *Yeah*. Get rid of it all.
Tom is actually a pioneer of the recurring smartphone-filmed dance challenge. He was among the first Triple J presenters to harness the internet and social media in producing and promoting additional entertaining content supplementary to “proper broadcasting stuff”, all the way back to his earliest appearances on the station in the late 2000s.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: So do you think Triple J and the ABC are perhaps not handling this shift into digital media very well? It’s all getting a bit fragmented, like with on demand video content that’s exclusive and separate from the radio. For example, Like A Versions are made essentially for Youtube and masqueraded as a live radio.
Tom: *Hahaha*… couldn’t possibly comment about that.
Like A Versions were always traditionally performed in studio with the radio presenters, live to broadcast. Pre-recording the segment used to be a convenient way around scheduling conflicts (such as for Kali Uchis or BROCKHAMPTON, whose performances went to air while they weren’t even in the country). Toward the mid-late 2010s, the segment started to see a significant rise in production quality (higher quality video, vetted song choices etc.), that seemingly necessitated the pre-recording of every appearance, perhaps to service increasing instant streaming demand. This is sometimes evidenced by video continuity errors, but also more advertent mishaps such as during The VANNS Feb 2020 appearance when Sally and Erica accidentally played the cover before the original, with mis-matched pre/post interviews and all. The Bon Iver cover in question wound up placing at #32 on Saturday. Triple J have never publicly acknowledged the change in production standards, or the continued pretence that the artists are actually performing live in studio each Friday morning. This includes cutting back to live broadcast in the middle of the segment for the news update and to interact with the text-line.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: That’s fine, it’s only a small part of a general shift into digital media, it’s all breaking up a bit and changing.
Tom: Yeah, that’s the media environment, right? I have no idea how anyone deals with that, or whether we change our metrics of success? My understanding is the ratings for normal radio is going down amongst young people [The ABC’s ratings as a whole dropped significantly in 2022, in particular with the younger audience]. A lot of young people are turning to like Smooth FM, which is kind of this interesting cultural wrinkle. I suppose when you can literally listen to pretty much any song in the world whenever you want, and you don’t have to listen to a couple of idiots like Alex Dyson and I talking in between, why would you? Or if you want to get idiots talking, you can get your own podcast that you like, so that’s just the reality of it. If Triple J is a youth broadcaster, who’s job is to try and introduce young audiences to cool music and culture, and news through Hack — which I still think does fantastic work — then they’ve just got to get that out through every single platform they can. Meet people where they are. I’m sure their podcast numbers are really probably very strong, I know their Youtube numbers are very strong. So I think they’re still making quality content that young people are into. But yeah in terms of like appointment listening, or tuning into the radio at a certain time and getting that content as people traditionally have done, that obviously is changing.
One effort on this front is the station trying to get more streaming radio through the Triple J smartphone app, for example the annual ‘Requestival’ week, where requests can only be submitted through the app. The newest is the launch of the confusingly named ‘Triple J Hottest’ internet radio station — available not even as a digital broadcast like Double J or Unearthed, but exclusively streaming through the app itself. If the question is: ‘why bother with radio when I can just put a Spotify playlist on?’, I’m not entirely convinced accessing music through yet another app is the answer.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: How do you draw the line for including pop music in Triple J rotation?
Tom: Oh yes. Yes, see I sort of came down on the pro Taylor Swift side of that. I thought that allowing the people to vote for that would have been totally fine.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: I believe Shake It Off was disqualified from the countdown for 2014 because there was a commercial incentive introduced. I think it was a major fast food brand or something, offered a voucher if you could prove you voted for it or whatever.
Tom: Oh… right. That is stupid, okay.
It was claimed before the countdown begun that Shake It Off would have placed #12 if allowed. The reason for the disqualification was never confirmed, but Triple J did reserve the right to remove entries for voting campaigns like #tay4hottest100. Nearly a decade on, in every week this year Taylor Swift has had more albums in ARIA’s top 50 than all Australian artists combined. Does it still sound like disqualifying her spoiled the fun? In the meantime, Triple J have showed a willingness to include music in Hottest 100 countdowns that they otherwise are opposed to playing or promoting. Such as former darlings Sticky Fingers’ appearances on the weekend at #65 and #27 with Rhiannon and Delete, as well as appearing in 2020’s Hottest 100 of The Decade.
W.B.T.G. Slinger: But disregarding that, you thought that Taylor Swift in the Hottest 100 was fair game?
Tom: I think so. I mean, there’s more that I think we could have recognised in that — whether it’s showing more attunement for commercial radio, or whether more interesting pop artists are able to emerge through channels like Triple J. You know, something like Birds Of Tokyo were exclusively played on Triple J and then blew up massively into the charts, and I also argue that their sound changed somewhat to almost fill that stadium-rock, commercial sound a little bit. I guess some people are a little less precious about where they get their pop music, able to say: ‘yeah I listen to Taylor Swift, I also listen to death metal, I don’t really care’. Whereas, I feel like ten years ago when I was a teenager [Tom was actually 23] it was more like: ‘you listen to that? That sucks. You’re a bad person.’
W.B.T.G. Slinger: I could ask the same for international and local music. There’s this big sense from negative feedback that Triple J aren’t fulfilling some obligation that they have to support local acts, or independent-sounding acts. Can you make a line?
Tom: Well, the Australian content is still in the quota, which is very high, and I think yes, you cannot criticize Triple J’s dedication to Australian music. Or at least if you are criticizing it, you must acknowledge how much better it does than almost every other commercial station. It has that mission, I know that Triple J staff are people who love Australian music and love discovering Australian bands.
Australian artists were very strongly represented on the weekend, making up 81% of appearances, including nine out of the top ten (which also included no women, another old bias of Hottest 100s past)
I didn’t try to get too involved with the politics of music rotation when I was there because I understand people got very upset and you know, you heard some artist saying they would be either rejected again and again, or if they weren’t to the liking of certain programmers and they didn’t get on, or some artists who were phased out I suppose, which would also be tough. That’s also maybe a reality of getting older too, realising you used to be cool and young, and then your music isn’t played any more.
When it comes to Radio vs Youtube, perhaps we need only to look at the top two entries: Denzel Curry – Bulls On Parade, and the winner: DMA’S – Believe. One is much more popular internationally, and represents a younger generation reclaiming a classic Triple J-core song. The other was recorded and broadcast live (in the same room as the countdown was presented from!), stripped back in the classic style of the segment, and with little preparation managed to find a touching new vulnerability in an old hit that proved the spirit for real radio broadcasting is still strong enough to prevail.
Tom’s book is heavily concerned with generational divides; and combined with the results of the countdown I’m left wondering where that leaves things. Being being born in the middle of the nineties puts me in between Millennials and Gen Z in different ways, and right into the ‘aging out of Triple J’ demographic. The further into my twenties I get, the more I feel the pull of Double J, though my (and the apparent general) sentiment that the Hottest 100 of Like A Version was a great time overall has got me second-guessing that. Can you be born too late for Double J, and too early for Triple J? When you don’t want to hand all of your music taste over to the algorithm, perhaps ‘Triple J Hottest’ is a worthy experiment after all. From my time with the stream so far, as an all-time ‘best of’ Triple J, it provides an exciting playlist with plenty of small form nostalgic content such as old countdown interviews. Recency bias was a big concern of the weekend, and ultimately the majority of the countdown was made up of covers from 2019 and later. But things changed toward the top, where not only did the average age of the cover increase, but of the original song covered as well. With the amount of YouTube views appearing to have little correlation to the countdown position, Tom’s adage was again proven true: it doesn’t need to be everyone’s favourite to win. In a world of dying media institutions, and faster, cheaper and easier platforms, it seems difficult to maintain that Triple truly are doing wrong by their listeners.
Note:
At the time of the interview and publication, Tom is not employed by, or affiliated with Triple J or the ABC for the purpose of this interview or otherwise.
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