Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang? Why Hanson’s iTunes 'Hit' is a Statistical Mirage
Holly Valance and Pauline Hanson have dropped a culture war anthem that supposedly topped the charts. But before the Right claims a cultural revolution, let's look at the math behind the 'hit' that’s making more noise than cents.
It feels like a fever dream from 1998, inverted for the TikTok era. Pauline Hanson, the woman whose voice was once chopped into the queer-club anthem I Don't Like It by Pauline Pantsdown, has decided to weaponise the dancefloor herself. This week, she unveiled Kiss Kiss (XX) My Arse, a satirical cover of Holly Valance’s 2002 hit, re-sung by Valance herself with lyrics that read like a Twitter thread gone radioactive.
The headlines screamed victory: "Hanson’s Anti-Woke Anthem Hits #1." Supporters cheered, claiming the "silent majority" had finally found its voice between a Turkish-pop sample and a complaint about pronouns. But as someone who stares at spreadsheets while others stare at culture wars, I have to ask: does a Number One on iTunes in 2026 actually mean anything?
“They say that I'm a he but I'm a she, Coz I gotta V and not a D.” — Lyrics from 'Kiss Kiss (XX) My Arse'
Subtlety, clearly, was not in the budget for Hanson's animated feature, A Super Progressive Movie. But let's strip away the outrage and look at the engine under the hood of this viral moment. The "chart success" cited by One Nation is specific to the iTunes Store—a digital storefront that has been a ghost town since the mid-2010s.
The "Boomer Chart" Phenomenon
To understand why this "hit" is a statistical mirage, you have to understand the difference between buying a file and streaming a track. The ARIA charts—the ones that actually measure what Australia is listening to—are dominated by streaming. iTunes, however, is a legacy platform. It relies on direct purchases ($2.19 a pop), a behaviour now almost exclusively practiced by older demographics or superfans mobilised by a political mailing list.
Here is the reality of the numbers required to hit "Number One" on these divergent platforms:
See the discrepancy? To top the iTunes chart, you don't need a cultural movement; you need a few hundred motivated voters with a PayPal account. It is the musical equivalent of winning a poll in a private Facebook group and declaring yourself Prime Minister.
The Holly Valance Factor
Perhaps the most fascinating element is the return of Holly Valance. Once the poster girl for early-2000s pop hedonism (and a Neighbours alumna, naturally), she has rebranded as a Reform UK conservative, palalng around with Nigel Farage. Her participation lends a bizarre layer of celebrity gloss to what would otherwise be a standard One Nation stunt.
(It is worth noting that the original "Kiss Kiss" was itself a cover of a Turkish song by Tarkan, a fact that adds a delicious layer of irony to its use in a nationalist campaign.)
Valance's "Whoops" on social media suggests a playful disruption, but the mechanics are purely political. The track is designed to trigger the algorithm of outrage: progressives share it to mock the cringe lyrics ("From the river to the sea, no job but I bleed LGBT"), while conservatives buy it to "own the libs." The result? A feedback loop that generates headlines (like this one) without necessarily generating listeners.
Legacy of Satire
Does this change anything for Hanson? Unlikely. In 1998, Pauline Pantsdown used satire to deconstruct Hanson’s rhetoric, turning her fear-mongering into a disco farce. That track stuck because it punched up at power with absurdist joy. Kiss Kiss (XX) My Arse attempts to reverse the polarity, but it feels more like a lecture set to a beat.
The irony is palpable. Hanson spent decades complaining about being the butt of the joke. Now that she has taken the microphone, she has proved that while she can buy a chart position, she still can't quite buy the beat.
