uh-oh. A twenty-something is yearning again.

I’m standing in the back of a ute screaming my lungs out over The Sydney Harbour Bridge and I’m convinced that I am, in fact, Emma Watson in ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’; except I don’t have the head shape for a pixie cut, and this year’s Triple J champion ‘Never Be Like You’ by Flume Feat. Kai is blasting out over the radio. 

For the first few days of 2026, when my feed—along with everyone else’s—became awash with 2016 nostalgia-bait retrospectives, I thought: fuck, that was a great year for music. A great year for pop music, specifically. Triple J’s Hottest 100 was made up of 66 Australian acts and wasn’t yet gauche; Billboard’s corporate grip on radio was loosening as streaming platforms rose; Pitchfork’s top 100 was dominated by The life of Pablo, Lemonade, Blond, and Black Star. We were fed, culturally hydrated, and borderline insufferable. 

It wasn’t until I pulled up my burner instagram to curate my own tiny time capsule and began selecting an accompanying track that 2016 Sofia reared her acne-sprinkled face to whinge that she would have hated all of my strongest options. Nostalgia, however, can strong-arm even the most pretentious versions of ourselves. I spent all afternoon taking the task of selecting a 2016 hit for my 32 followers far too seriously and eventually settled on a track that 17-year-old Sofia would have publicly scoffed at: ‘Closer’ by The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey. And oh man, what a track. 

There’s a certain clucky buoyancy to Halsey’s warbling lines about your roommate back in Boulder. Millennial optimism was the name of the zeit-game, and we were alive. HBO’s Girls was still dropping seasons. Alt-rock band Violent Soho had 5 entries in the Hottest 100. And despite containing possibly the most forced rhyme of any chorus committed to the airwaves, Miike Snow’s hit ‘Genghis Khan‘ (No. 15 that year) reverberated through space and time. We weren’t yet jaded, and we wouldn’t be until November when the U.S. presidential election was called and the Mark Fisher-esque slow cancellation of culture properly set in as we quietly abandoned ‘Love Yourself’ for ‘Shape of You’. 

We weren’t yet jaded, and we wouldn’t be until November when the U.S. presidential election was called and the Mark Fisher-esque slow cancellation of culture properly set in as we quietly abandoned ‘Love Yourself’ for ‘Shape of You’. 

Now, I search for the video my friend took of me in the back of that ute, but I fear it was saved to my old snapchat – the one linked to an ex-high school friends’ email – which, along with my Snapstreaks, is long past the possibility of recovery. 2016 was the year I started believing nothing would ever truly be erased from the internet. And yet, that video, with the Snapchat dog filter distorting my screaming mouth – along with my concert footage of Yung Lean and Bladee at Max Watt’s (since closed and rebranded ‘Liberty Hall’) – is lost to the recesses of time, along with the accompanying optimism of the age.

Yearning was one of the key words of 2025, and as I watch my algorithm whisper through Zara Larsson that 2026 is the new 2016 – that I should start wearing black skinny jeans again and mass-produced lightweight army jackets from General Pants and Co., slap the dog filter back over my face, say “pupper” and “doggo” on the reg, and start quoting Vines – I want to advocate for a completely sincere sonic yearning. Hit shuffle on the Billboard 100. Listen in order to Pitchfork’s best 100 songs of the year. Throw an all-day party in a share-house backyard (extra points if the grass is overgrown or you are only drinking cider). Stream the Triple J Hottest 100 from its record-breaking year, back when it meant something – not because it was better, but because we believed it still might be.

Stream the Triple J Hottest 100 from its record-breaking year, back when it meant something – not because it was better, but because we believed it still might be.