A few years back, when Anthony Albanese first ascended to the nation’s top job, I was asked to write about what the occasional DJ’s taste in music might say about him.

But now DJ Albo™ has nominated his top 10 Australian songs of all time, for Triple J’s upcoming Hottest 100 Australian Songs competition – I think I’ve got a better idea who he is.

He is an Aussie bloke in his early 60s.

There is nothing surprising about Albanese’s choices – assuming they are honest, and not chosen to burnish the everyman credentials of a man who grew up in public housing and is now the happy owner of multiple homes.

Not that there’s anything wrong with his choices, either. There’s a fair body of research behind the “reminiscence bump” theory that the music we fall in love with in our youth – when we’re developing our sense of self and identity – is the music that ends up staying with us for life.

The reminiscence bump is mostly strongly felt towards music heard between the ages of about 10 to 30. And nostalgia is a hell of a drug, which is why most people remain slaves to the conceit that the music of their generation was the greatest ever made.

The oldest song in Albanese’s list is the Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, first released in 1976, when the PM was barely 13. The most recent, Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy, was released when he was 33.

In between are unimpeachable, uncontroversial classics (Cold Chisel’s Flame Trees), a genuine wildcard (the Fauves’ Dogs are the Best People) and a number of songs that were not necessarily hits at the time but are widely beloved now.

Those songs – the Go-Betweens’ Cattle and Cane, the Triffids’ Wide Open Road, Hunters & Collectors’ Throw Your Arms Around Me, even Spiderbait’s Buy Me a Pony – are the most notionally left-field choices, reflecting a lifelong dedication to community radio.

Otherwise, there is little stylistic, cultural or gender diversity. The music is entirely guitar-based and the songs are all written by men. There are only two women among Albanese’ list of artists: the Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison, and Spiderbait’s bass player and singer, Janet English.

What did surprise me was that Albanese’s list is entirely white. Leaving aside Midnight Oil’s Beds Are Burning, no song speaks from Indigenous experience. No Treaty, no Blackfella/Whitefella (or My Island Home); no Took the Children Away; no From Little Things Big Things Grow. Definitely nothing as hard-boiled as January 26. Or Better in Blak. But those songs fall well outside Albo’s reminiscence bump.

The fact is, lists are deeply personal things. It’s no different for this Aussie bloke in his early 50s. I’m currently in the process of compiling my own list of my favourite albums, and am embarrassed by the overwhelming whiteness of it all – not to mention that I first heard most of them between the ages of, you guessed it, 10 and 30.

If I was to nominate a list of Australian songs that went beyond my own dodgy personal predilections (pretending, for a moment, that I’m the PM and anyone actually cares) then I’d want 10 songs that actually told a story about this place. One that’s right and true.

So, Took the Children Away would definitely be in there. And My Island Home, a universal expression of homesickness and love of country. I’d also nominate Helen Reddy’s I Am Woman, a song my mother (one of millions) loved and drew inspiration from.

But that’s just me. Feel free to tell me “no way, get fucked, fuck off” in the comments.