"O Superman" by Laurie Anderson

Reranked Position: #3

Last updated: March 09, 2014

Appearances

• All-Time 1989: #96

Massive fangirl of Laurie Anderson over here - you can blame my time at The University of Adelaide for that one. Seriously, Laurie Anderson is one of THE GREATS of experimental music and is worthy of the word artist.

O Superman is a beautiful and angelic piece that requires multiple listens to really appreciate the depth that comes with the lyrics, the vocoder, the vocal layering, the synths... I could go on and on. O Superman is incidentally the piece I would recommend people who don't listen to experimental music to start with when it comes to Laurie Anderson's work.

Reranking this was actually really difficult for me. I adore O Superman. At the same time though, it's not catchy in the same way that The Cicada (That At Five Dock) is, but is just as artistic as The Mercy Seat, albeit in very different ways. In the end, I have gone with O Superman at #2 - it's a brilliant work of art, but sometimes you want something that's a bit more catchy.

"Say Goodbye" by Hunters & Collectors

Reranked Position: #8

Last updated: March 09, 2014

Appearances

• All-Time 1990: #71
• All-Time 1989: #97

Hunters & Collectors have done stupidly well over the years on the Hottest 100. In the All-Time 1989 list, Hunters & Collectors ended up with four songs ranking (including Say Goodbye), plus an additional 11 entries over the years. Mind you, there's only six different songs of theirs on the list, which would make for interesting analysis, but I feel like that's a special post down the track.

Listening to Say Goodbye isn't that enjoyable. The arrangement itself is nice, but listening to it is a massive borefest. Maybe this is a song that I have to listen to a live version for, but Say Goodbye is a song that I could just listen to once and be satisfied with it, never to hear it again. Great music isn't like that, and Hunters and Collectors have done so much better - Holy Grail and Throw Your Arms Around Me immediately come to mind.

Triple J listeners know good music when they hear it - the only reason why I can imagine that Say Goodbye made an appearance in the 1989 and 1990 lists is because it was their highest charting single at the time (24 in Australia, 20 in New Zealand). So Say Goodbye currently sits at #5 at the date of publishing, but I can honestly see it dropping out as I go through more and more of the lists.

I'm not dead!

Just a quick post to say that I haven't forgotten about Hottest 100 Reranked. My personal life has been all of the crazy, and things are only settling down long enough for me to think about posting again.

Planning to have Say Goodbye by Hunters & Collectors reviewed either in the later parts of today or 14/10. It's #97 in the All-Time 1989 list.