Triple J 's Hottest 100 for 2006 will be aired next week on Friday 26 January (Australia Day) and obviously voting lines have been open for some time.

Unfortunately I can't really think of any artists I feel compelled to vote for.  I'll need to go back through my collection.  But there are artists I would really like to vote against.  Namely AFI, Panic! At The Disco and My Chemical Romance.  In fact, these are the only three bands I would vote against.

I really don't know what they are doing on Triple J to begin with.  I accept that not everything Triple J plays appeals to me.  But I appreciate that many of those songs deserve to be promoted and in many cases I get to like them... maybe even love them.  But this trend of ultra-slick, pop-punk, emo bands doesn't deserve Triple J's attention. 

You can tell by their collection of glossy, expensive film-clips that they don't fit the Triple J mold.  How does a band like Panic! At The Disco get such strong support from a label on their debut album?  Unless of course there is a marketing team molding them for mass appeal of teenagers.  Remember the video for Green Day's debut single from Dookie?  It was a pillow fight shot with a handy-cam, I think.  

Triple J were wise enough to leave punk, wannabees Good Charlotte (another band with huge a budget for a debut single) and Simple Plan off their playlists.  So why does this new collection of bands qualify when they share the same formula?