The Wettest 100 is back for its third year!
The Wettest 100 is a fan-voted countdown that recognises and celebrates our vibrant local, emerging, DIY and independent music scene. Are you an Australian musician who released music in 2023? Your songs could be included!
We sat down with founder and co-ordinator Becki Whitton to find out more.
The Wettest 100 is an annual countdown of Australian music with a focus on experimental, alt-pop, ambient, DIY-punk and other left-field genres. It includes a top tracks countdown and a top albums countdown each year.
For years I’d been semi-joking on Twitter about the idea of doing a “harsh noise hottest 100” as a left-field alternative to triple j’s Hottest 100. I actually thought the idea was good but I hoped someone else would take it up and run with it. No one else did so eventually I was like, “I’ve gotta stop just talking about this and try it out.” The first year it ran people just voted via a Q&A story on my Instagram that I would put up every day for a month. It really took off so in 2022 we moved it to its own website and Instagram page.
My aim for the countdown is that it will be a calling card for ranking artists. Artists can use their song’s placement to secure better live show spots, hear their music more widely on community radio, and reach more of the people who love what they make. Basically, it’s about drawing together the audience for stuff that sits outside the mainstream of what Australia’s music industry caters to.
I see the Wettest 100 as something that is in a relationship of mutual support with community radio stations - in particular FBi Radio and PBS FM have been really strong champions of the countdown, and are staunch supporters of emerging left-field music across the board. The Wettest 100 is in some respects a response to the limitations of triple j (simply in terms of time and space - they can’t cover every genre because there’s just too much sick new music coming out in Australia), but triple j Unearthed still has a lot of time and support for punk and experimental pop artists too.
(Curious to learn more? Check out our tips piece on Promoting your music to community radio. Or, read our recent Q&A with FBi’s Lee Tran Lam.)
Songs that were released in 2023 by Australian artists. Songs are eligible if they don’t feature in the triple j Hottest 100’s longlist for voting, and albums are eligible if they haven’t featured in the ARIA charts.
Voting is open now on the Wettest 100 website – wettest100.au. There you’ll find all the relevant information on how to vote. Voting closes on 31 January. The top 100 tracks will be celebrated 11 February with a live countdown, streamed from Carriage Studio in Melbourne. The tracks are also celebrated on the Wettest 100 Instagram.
Check out the Wettest 100 Instagram page to stay up-to-date with happenings.
You can also listen to the 2022 Wettest 100 playlist here!