Music

Here Are The Songs That Science Predicts Will Top The Hottest 100

That number one spot might surprise you.

tones and i like a version

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Hottest 100 season is well and truly upon us, which means that it’s time for rampant speculation about who will take out the coveted top spot on the list. And, as always, 100 Warm Tunas is here to help us narrow things down a little.

For those unaware of the site, 100 Warm Tunas trawls the internet and collates together all the votes that have been posted on social media. That means this is not some wild and rampant process of guesswork — it’s based on votes that have already been cast, making it more rigorous and scientific than most.

To that end, 100 Warm Tunas has a pretty great track record. In 2016, it nearly nailed the entire top ten, only mixing up the position of Amy Shark’s ‘Adore’ and Flume’s ‘Never Be Like You.’

However, because the predictive power of the site is based on collating votes, that also means that the list on 100 Warm Tunas changes as more and more top tens are added. As the sample size gets bigger, songs skip about the list, so if your favourite is sitting way near the top, don’t necessarily expect it to stay there.

For instance, at the moment, 100 Warm Tunas puts Denzel Curry’s incendiary cover of ‘Bulls on Parade’ right in the top spot of the Hottest 100. And while that song was beloved, setting the internet on fire the moment that it aired, the song with the best chance of topping the list — Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey’ — is currently sitting at position number six.

Of course, it’s possible that ‘Dance Monkey’ is so much lower because it’s the song that people feel embarrassed for liking. Could it be that there are a swathe of secret voters, chucking in their ballot for that song but refusing to post about it on social media?

Only time will tell — in the meantime, see the current ranking below in the Spotify playlist.

The site is updated daily, so feel more than free to keep checking back if your favourite has climbed the chart all the way up to the unveiling of the Hottest 100, which will go down on Saturday January 25.