Spotify listeners shun Australian music says Wrapped 2025

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Spotify listeners shun Australian music says Wrapped 2025

5 December 2025

The suggestion, made by The Daily Aus (TDA), is that few Australians listened to local music in 2025. On Spotify at least.

Zero local acts featured in Australia’s most listened-to artists, tracks, and albums on Spotify in 2025.

You’ll have to go to Instagram (IG) to read the slide card since TDA mainly publish their news reporting on IG, because their target audience, mainly Generation Z and some Millennials, consume news and current affairs reporting on the socials.

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the world needs more niche blogs, and TDA, with their fine writing would slot nicely into news and current affairs niche. They do republish articles to their website, but sadly there is no RSS feed to subscribe to.

But back to the headline. I checked my 2025 Spotify Wrapped, and found Moon Motion, by Brisbane based Australian act First Beige (er, Instagram page), was my second most listened to track this year.

Tame Impala, Peking Duk, RÜFÜS DU SOL, and Vera Blue, are among Australian acts on my liked songs playlist. I can’t be the only person in Australia with local acts on their playlist.

It seems surprising to me that not one floated to the top, or at least near it, on the overall most-listened to lists. But maybe it’s some sort of Spotify quirk, and maybe next year we won’t be talking so much about them.

I also learned I have a music listening age of twenty-two (thank-you Spotify), why then all this talk about niche-blogs and RSS feeds? At my “age” I’m meant to be all in the socials.

Average at Best, a memoir by Astrid Jorgensen, Pub Choir founder

29 October 2025

Brisbane based Australian musician and singer, and founder of Pub Choir, Astrid Jorgensen (Instagram page), recently published her memoir, Average at Best.

Average, says Jorgensen, is underrated, given how difficult it is to be the best:

By its very nature, ‘best’ is rare and elusive: you’re not going to get much of it in life. And I sure don’t want to miss out on deeply experiencing the fullness of my one precious existence, searching for the sliver of ‘best’.

One of Pub Choirs’ feats was, in August 2023, to assemble nineteen-thousand people across Australia to sing the ever popular Africa, a song recorded by American band Toto in 1982.

Vale William Munro, AKA Billy Wiz, Bondi Junction personality

22 October 2025

Some sad news. Billy Wiz, Sydney based Australian DJ, artist, author, cartoonist, and colourful character in general, died last week.

In recent years Billy operated a gallery — in the garden of his street level apartment, on Oxford Street, Bondi Junction — displaying his painting and illustration work, for passersby to peruse.

When in Sydney, we go to the bakery beside his apartment building, and would frequently see Billy deep in conversation with someone who was waiting for their coffee order.

The neighbourhood won’t be quite the same without Billy, who brought a sense of community to what often feels like a retail and commercial precinct. He was even happy to let customers of the bakery tether their dog’s leashes to his fence, while they went inside.

You can find out a bit more about Billy in this Media Man interview published in August 2003, and see some of his artworks on his Instagram page.

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art, Australia, music, Sydney

Future Boy, a book by Michael J. Fox, and a missing Gibson guitar

20 August 2025

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey through the Space-Time Continuum, is a book written by American actor Michael J. Fox, of, of course, Back to the Future (BTTF) fame, in conjunction with TV and film producer, Nelle Fortenberry.

Fans of the 1985 time-travel caper, and Fox himself, probably already know the story. Fox was also on the cast of TV sitcom Family Ties, and during the filming of BTTF, would shuttle back and forth between the sets of TV and film. TV during the day, film by night. If working two jobs each day was tiring, Fox sure as hell didn’t show it, as he seemed to do nothing but burst about the screen in BTTF.

Future Boy delves deeper into this story, through interviews with the cast and crew of both Family Ties and BTTF, and will be published on Tuesday 14 October 2025.

That’ll definitely be a red-letter day for BTTF aficionados.

And in other news, BTTF cast and crew are searching for the guitar, the Cherry Red Gibson ES-345 to be precise, which Marty McFly played when performing Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, at the Enchantment Under the Sea high school dance.

This is no publicity stunt (I don’t think). BTTF producers realised the iconic guitar was missing when they went to film the sequel, Back to the Future Part II, back in 1989.

They’re hoping to find it today, soon, this century, to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of BTTF, and the release of a documentary about the film, Lost to the Future, which I think goes to air later this year. Members of the cast, including Fox, Harry Waters Jr, Lea Thompson, and Christopher Lloyd, are among those who have issued an appeal for information in the search for the Gibson.

I’d forgotten 2025 was such a red-letter year in the history of BTTF. I think this calls for a screening this evening of BTTF.

New songs by dead musicians being posted on Spotify

1 August 2025

In recent weeks, people have been posting seemingly new songs from deceased artists on music streaming service Spotify. But these are not unreleased recordings that have been discovered in an archive somewhere, they’ve been created using generative AI, writes Christianna Silva at Mashable:

Take a look at Blaze Foley, a country music singer-songwriter who was murdered nearly 40 years ago. According to a report from 404 Media on Monday, a new song popped up on his Spotify page called “Together” just last week. You can’t find the song on Spotify anymore because the streaming service removed it for violating “Spotify’s deceptive content policies, which prohibit impersonation intended to mislead, such as replicating another creator’s name, image, or description, or posing as a person, brand, or organization in a deceptive manner,” a Spotify spokesperson said in an email to Mashable.

While Spotify has removed the fake recordings relatively quickly, some members have expressed frustration at the difficulty in flagging such material. Many feel they should be able to tag a song that is, or is suspected of being AI generated. Presently this is not possible on the platform.

Never Tear Us Apart, by INXS, tops all Australian Hottest 100

28 July 2025

The 1987 ballad by Australian rock act INXS claimed the number one spot in Triple J’s countdown of the Hottest 100 Australian Songs, last Saturday.

INXS rose to prominence during the 80’s and 90’s, when the late Micheal Hutchence, who died in 1997, fronted the act. The band last performed live in 2012, though they’ve not officially retired.

The top ten was not quite as old-school Australian rock as I thought it might be. Cold Chisel featured at numbers seven and eight, with Flame Trees (1984), and Khe Sanh (1978), respectively. Veteran singer Paul Kelly made it to number nine with his 1996 track How to Make Gravy.

Somebody That I Used to Know (2011) by Gotye, My Happiness (2000) by Powderfinger, Scar (2004) by Missy Higgins, Untouched (2007) by The Veronicas, and The Nosebleed Section (2003) by Hilltop Hoods, also charted in the top ten. Music recorded in the twenty-first century (which I’ll say includes 2000), ended up being well represented here.

Ben Lee suggests shock jocks host Triple J Hottest 100. No, not quite

19 July 2025

The shock jocks in question are Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O, who host a show — The Kyle and Jackie O Show — on a Sydney based commercial Australian radio station. The pair, especially Sandilands, often find themselves in hot water, on account of inappropriate and offensive comments made on air.

Last Wednesday, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article making the claim Australian musician Ben Lee had suggested Kyle and Jackie O host Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 countdown.

Triple J is a non-commerical Australian radio station with a focus on broadcasting new and independent local music, but mixed with non-Australian indie music. The Hottest 100 charts listeners’ favourite songs of the previous calendar year, regardless of country of origin.

But next Saturday, 26 July, Triple J will broadcast a one-off Hottest 100 of listener’s all-time favourite Australian only songs, as part of their fiftieth birthday celebrations.

In response to the Herald article, Lee posted a clarification on his Instagram page, saying Triple J’s Hottest 100 countdown, in its present format, should be broadcast by a commercial station. The jays, Lee explains, as a government funded station, should only support Australian music.

What I’m saying is let commercial radio handle servicing multi-national major labels — that’s their job. Triple J is taxpayer funded and I think those funds would be better used almost exclusively supporting Australian artists and culture.

I get where Lee is coming from here.

But the Hottest 100 is a draw card event for the jays, and likely introduces new listeners to the station, who in turn go on to hear the station’s predominately Australian music programming. On the other hand, as Lilya Murray, writing for Arc, a UNSW student publication, points out, representation of Australian artists in the Hottest 100, has been declining in recent years:

In 2024, only 29 Australian artists featured in the Hottest 100. This was a significant drop from 2023, which featured 52 local artists, and 57 from 2022.

Triple J has a mandate to broadcast a minimum of forty-percent Australian music, though the station claimed in 2019 they played closer to sixty-percent. Why then would fewer Australian musicians be featuring in the annual countdowns?

One suggestion here is that many Hottest 100 voters are not regular Triple J listeners, and are voting up music they’ve heard elsewhere. But I’m not sure you can stop people voting for non-Australian music, unless maybe it wasn’t aired on Triple J in the first place. After all, the Hottest 100 is meant to be a poll of Triple J listeners, not other stations.

But I doubt a one-hundred percent focus on local music, both played by Triple J, and included in the countdown, is the answer either. I’ve always enjoyed the jay’s mix of new and independent, and predominantly Australian music, and the annual Hottest 100 that results.

But more discussion about local music can only be a good thing, something the misleading notion that Kyle and Jackie O host the Hottest 100, might have precipitated.

Triple J turns fifty, will rank Hottest 100 Australian songs to celebrate

12 July 2025

Happy birthday to the jays, which clocked the milestone back in January.

To mark the momentous occasion, a special all-time Hottest 100 countdown of Australian songs will be broadcast in a week, on Saturday 26 July 2025. This chart varies from the annual Hottest 100 countdowns, which rank the favourite songs of Triple J listeners, released each calender year, regardless of country of origin.

Voting closes on Thursday 17 July 2025, at 5PM AEST, so if you haven’t participated, time is running out. Now to the thorny question. What would I vote for? After giving the matter some thought, here’s what I came up with:

Alive by RÜFÜS DU SOL
Lie to Me by Vera Blue
Evening Star by All India Radio
Anthem for the Year 2000 by Silverchair
Rabbit Hole by Jess Day
Never Dance Alone by Crooked Colours
Let Me Down Easy by Gang of Youths
Under the Milky Way by The Church
Heart Attack by Flight Facilities
The Trouble with Us by Chet Faker and Marcus Marr
Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil

There are more I’d choose, but I think ten songs is the most you can vote for, as is I’ve listed eleven.

Mark Zuckerberg says one day our friends will be AI chatbots

12 May 2025

Way back in 1979, a British new wave band called Tubeway Army asked the question: Are ‘Friends’ Electric. Note the band’s use of scare quotes around the word friend. Are they suggesting friends that are electric are not real friends? Listen to the song and see what you think.

Forty-six years later, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, believes the majority of people’s friends will soon be AI chatbots of some sort. These AI ‘friends’ might be okay to talk to, but there wouldn’t be much else you could do with them. For example, you couldn’t really go out to dinner together.

Zuckerberg thinks most Americans only have three friends — I wonder what the average friend count is for Facebook members? — but is pretty sure they would like more. He thinks fifteen is the optimal number. The way then to make-up the shortfall is to generate AI companions.

An AI ‘friend’ might be a bit like an imaginary friend who could think for themselves. The Facebook co-founder goes on to suggest therapists and business agents will also be AI chatbots. I’m not sure if chatbots would be ideal therapists, but as business agents they might work.

Becoming Led Zeppelin: the first ever authorised documentary

17 February 2025

Becoming Led Zeppelin, trailer, a documentary made by Irish-British filmmaker Bernard MacMahon, is screening in Australian cinemas at present, and tells the story of the English band’s first two years, from 1968 to 1970.

I listened to their 1971 rock classic Stairway to Heaven — one of their many compositions — and I have to say, they don’t make them like they used to. I doubt anyone could make them like they used to now, even if they wanted to.

Oh to be a rock and not to roll…

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