Triple J Week – Wednesday 27 October
Triple J week hits the middle of the week. Today was the first day in the week when a song got played more than once (‘Doncamatic’ by Gorillaz) and when the obvious signs of playlist that were starting to be seen yesterday became clearer. While Triple J’s playlist isn’t as restricted as Nova’s, where you will hear the same song maybe three or four times in a working day’s listening, it all starts to sound a bit familiar after listening in for a few days.
Apart from the assumed Sydney bias (which doesn’t seem to be true, based the numbers seen in the last three days – with today once again showing Melbourne in front of Sydney in terms of songs played, Perth in third and Brisbane still languishing in fourth), one of the other main accusations is about the amount of Australian hip hop that the station plays. This week was probably a bad week to listen to the station, with the featured album for the week being by Melbourne hip hop MC Illy, but reviewing the list of songs played each day, and from anecdotal evidence, it didn’t seem like they were playing too much ‘skip hop’, it’s probably an unfair accusation. What I did keep finding was an inner voice noticing the amount of very commercial dance music (i.e. Bag Raiders, Miami Horror) and the very commercial rock that Triple J probably shouldn’t be bothering with (i.e. songs from the almost universally panned new Kings Of Leon album). It will be interesting to look at the whole week’s data and see how much of it is on Nova’s playlist.
Anyway, Wednesday in numbers:
Australian music back above the 50% mark after dipping slightly below yesterday.
| County | Total Plays | Percentage |
| Australia | 55 | 50.46% |
| USA | 27 | 24.77% |
| UK | 14 | 12.84% |
| Canada | 4 | 3.67% |
| Sweden | 2 | 1.83% |
| Norway | 2 | 1.83% |
| France | 2 | 1.83% |
| Belgium | 1 | 0.92% |
| New Zealand | 1 | 0.92% |
| Netherlands | 1 | 0.92% |
| Total | 109 | 100.00% |
Triple J loves new music on Wednesdays too, although the real surprise, and a very pleasant one too, was playing a song from way back in the dark ages of 1977, Elvis Costello’s ‘Welcome To The Working Week’, played as part of a selection of songs with ‘work’ in the title.
| Year | Total Plays | Percentage |
| 2010 | 83 | 76.15% |
| 2009 | 10 | 9.17% |
| 2008 | 2 | 1.83% |
| 2007 | 3 | 2.75% |
| 2006 | 1 | 0.92% |
| 2005 | 1 | 0.92% |
| 2004 | 1 | 0.92% |
| 2003 | 1 | 0.92% |
| 2001 | 3 | 2.75% |
| 1993 | 2 | 1.83% |
| 1990 | 1 | 0.92% |
| 1977 | 1 | 0.92% |
| Total | 109 | 100.00% |
Brisbane bands achieved half as many plays as Perth artists, with four songs played in the 8½ hours between 9am and 5:30pm and, as noted yesterday, two of those are bands playing the Triple J-promoted gig at the Hi-Fi for the mostly pointless Australian Music Month. (When you have legislation setting quotas for the percentage of Australian music that gets played on the radio, what’s the point in having a whole month devoted to it, unless it’s so Triple J can blow their own trumpet about how much they support Australian – excluding Brisbane – music?)
| City | Total Plays | Percentage |
| Melbourne | 21 | 38.18% |
| Sydney | 18 | 32.73% |
| Perth | 8 | 14.55% |
| Brisbane | 4 | 7.27% |
| Fremantle | 1 | 1.82% |
| Canberra | 1 | 1.82% |
| Blue Mountains | 1 | 1.82% |
| Ballarat | 1 | 1.82% |
| Total | 55 | 100.00% |
The four Brisbane songs were:
- ‘Final Day’ – Numbers Radio
- ‘I Love Work’ – Butterfingers
- ‘Coming Around’ – Hungry Kids Of Hungary
- ‘Overpass’ – John Steel Singers
Butterfingers were another song played as part of the five song feature on songs about ‘work’. Final thought for the day: who are Numbers Radio anyway and why are Triple J all over them?
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