The Rubens, who topped Triple J's Hottest 100 with their Hoops, might disagree but sometimes a silly attempt to sneak a pop star into the poll can be just what a popular vote needs to add some spice. 
Without some website or betting agency gaming the system with a rogue Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber entry, the radio network's popular vote for favourite songs of the past year spread itself through the afternoon of Australia Day with few surprises and absolutely no controversy. Or risk.
To be fair, that's much like the surprisingly conservative station and its equally safe listeners. This is the voting public which returned 2014's winner, the amiable Vance Joy, to the top 20 with a song slightly more lively than his winning Riptide, and probably listened to the countdown with their parents and grandparents, everyone enjoying the friendly rock of The Rubens and the bubblegum hooks of Major Lazer almost as much as "the kids".
The closest thing to danger was that listeners might throw something at their radios at the frequent interruptions during the countdown from "strong language" alerts whenever a bit of swearing was on its way, such as Kendrick Lamar's. Given the target audience hears the songs regularly, and presumably uses the language themselves, it wasn't clear who needed warning or protection.   Maybe it was the foreign listeners.
As the voiceovers told us often, more than two million votes were lodged from 172 countries, the latter figure a claim which had some of the "yes we're important" feel of Channel 9's assertions that State Of Origin games are being watched in territories all over the globe.
But who is to say that Germans, Albanians, Mongolians and Americans still digging themselves out of Snowmaggedon weren't tuned in on the Internet to the countdown? And if they were listening they would have recognised a good number of the songs with international acts such as R&B star, The Weeknd (two entries in the top 20), Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and Drake strongly represented alongside 53 Australian releases including four from Courtney Barnett, the most represented artist but yet another female artist who missed out on the top spot.
Hottest 100 Top 5
1. The Rubens - Hoops
2. Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta
3. Major Lazer - Lean On
4. Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better
5. Tame Impala - Let It Happen