Creators Of A.B. Original Hottest 100 Campaign Reckon They Won’t Be Disqualified

The creators of a popular campaign to vote for A.B. Original‘s song ‘January 26’ in triple j‘s Hottest 100 of 2016 have reassured supporters that they don’t think the track will be disqualified from the poll because it’s backed by a large social media push.

The campaign, which has thousands of supporters on its Facebook event page, was created in opposition to triple j‘s decision to keep the Hottest 100 countdown on Australia Day, which came despite calls for the broadcaster to change the countdown to another day.

Now, the campaign’s co-creators say they’ve received “a few hesitantly supportive messages” from people who like the sentiments behind the campaign, but are “concerned about its legality”, especially because Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ was disqualified from the countdown in 2014 after being associated with a social media campaign.

Taking to the Facebook event, campaign co-creator Simon Bags says he thinks “there’s a few key differences working in our favour”.

“Firstly, very artist and artist fan club campaigns [sic] for songs every year. A lot of them have had paid advertising encouraging a vote by either the band themselves or a record label. There’s no way a grassroots, entirely unfunded campaign like this can be disqualified while the dozens — probably hundreds of others — go unpunished,” Bags says.

“Second, this song has been played on triple j and was even part of a feature album, while Taylor never having been played on triple j was an argument the station used in its decision to disqualify her.

“Third, there’s no promotion, competition or incentive like the KFC thing with which they pinged the Taylor campaign. This is a fair dinkum grassroots campaign — even the media coverage has been entirely spontaneous and driven only by the reach of all you excellent people sharing the event, we haven’t reached out to any media on this because the campaign speaks for itself.

“And even if they decide to disqualify the song, that scenario, while hugely disappointing, still creates a huge amount of conversation and controversy, which means it still achieves what the song aims for. But banking on that eventuality is giving in before we’ve even properly started. And it’ll all mean nothing unless we get onto that website and smash the vote button for this banger of a tune.”

Music Feeds has contacted triple j, which has declined to comment at this stage.

Voting for triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2016 closes at 9am AEDT Monday, 23rd January, and you can vote right here.

Read Bags’ Facebook in full below, alongside A.B. Original’s ‘January 26’.

Watch: A.B. Original – ‘January 26’

Simon Bags Statement (Via Facebook)

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