Shoot Me Now: More Nominations for the 2010 J Award

I’ve moaned on and on about this in the past and I’ve truly beaten the horse to death, but another round of nominees for the 2010 J Award has been announced, and yet again, I’m left exasperated by absence of artists who have released great albums this year but have been ignored by the broadcaster. If you didn't already know, Washington and Birds of Toyko have joined Sia, Tame Impala and Cloud Control on the roster of ‘breakthrough artists’ in line for the national youth broadcaster's 2010 award for best album.

Any person who has followed the awards over the past year should recognise that many of these 'breakthrough artists' also happen to be the ones consistently played on high rotation throughout the year on Triple J. I don’t begrudge an artist from receiving praise for work well done and reaping the rewards, but frankly, I've formed the view that the J Award is nothing more than a rubber stamp, justifying the promotion of certain artists, while ignoring those who are doing equally as good work with little recognition but who haven't, for whatever reason, captured the 'hearts and minds' of the Triple J audience. In short, populism reigns supreme and critical assessment of the work submitted for the award may go by the weigh side. Sounds elitist, but hear me out.

The award ostensibly represents the talent Australia has to offer. To quote their website, it is an award that “recognises the very best musical talent that Australia has on offer, each year celebrating the outstanding musical output of our homegrown artists." [Source: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/jawards/10/about/].

So the question that always bugs me when these nominations come around, particularly when you consider the objective of the award, is the J Award truly representative of quality Australian music, or simply some means of self-justifying giving a lot of airtime to a relatively small group of bands. Where is the transparency?

This is not a criticism of any of the bands nominated in 2010 so far – truth be told, I’ve only listened to two in full – but historically, some of the records that have been nominated have been decidedly underwhelming. Occasionally, some artists seem to be nominated on the basis of their past work rather than the merits of the record that is currently up for judgement. Case in point, Bernard Fanning’s nomination for ‘Tea & Sympathy’ some years back, a record that was pedestrian and lacked any real staying power (this Drowned in Sound review of that record pretty much sums up my own listening experience of this release).

Of course, the preceding view is coloured by my own subjective judgements, but I think it is hard to deny that the artists who get nominated generally come from a group that gets consistently hammered into the listeners. There are question marks over whether the broadcaster is aware of other records of true value, that in many cases far exceed those nominated.

Lets have a look at a few examples. Last year, Sydney band Songs put out an absolutely brilliant self-titled debut record yet wasn’t picked up by the J Award. This year, Melbourne group Otouto have put out ‘Pip’, another piece of brilliance that has tragically gone ignored. The Boat People’s ‘Dear Darkly’ is also great but can’t even rate a mention thus far. There are many other examples that I’m sure people could think of as well. Richard in Your Mind’s debut record is outstanding and hasn’t appeared on the nominees list.

While more esoteric, the 2010 Mess and Noise mid-year report is far more illuminating when it comes to seeing what artists are making waves in the craft. I suggest having a read of that. You’ll note Otouto’s name features prominently amongst the list. I wonder why that is?

Consequently, this post talks of my own personal loss of faith in the merits of having a J Award. If the award is to recognise the best musical talent, then I think it is failing, because, in my view, it is not recognising the best musical talent, but rather reinforcing its own monolithic and completely subjective opinion on what is good and what is bad. I know it would be impossible to nominate every single record of merit for the award, but if the nomination process were more transparent - if the listeners could see exactly why the judging team selects certain records rather than others - perhaps some of my confidence could be restored. Because at the moment, the J Award seems nothing more than a fancy marketing tool for both Triple J and their favourites.

To finish off, let’s have a look at some zingers from the past….

In 2005, The Drones released an absolute masterpiece in 'Wait Long By the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By' along side the aforementioned Bernard Fanning solo record. The Drones lose out to Wolfmother.

In 2006, Gotye and Sarah Blasko released great records and lost out to The Hilltops Hoods formulaic brand of Australian hip hop (pan pipe sample + beat + beer reference + shout out to DJ Peril = song) manages to win the day.

In 2007, Eddy Current Suppression Ring released a great debut record and lose out to a The Presets 'Apocalypso'. I almost threw up in a hat on that one.

Occasionally it had looked like perhaps the national broadcaster had got it somewhere in the correct ballpark – in 2008 with The Panics, and last year with Sarah Blasko, but generally, I have been underwhelmed with each offering from the 'winner' of the award.

Any further thoughts?

2010 J Awards. And the Nominees Are....

It is something I bitch about nearly every year. The J Awards. Sometimes I almost feel that they're pointless.

Despite this fact, they're newsworthy. Three artists have been announced so far. Tame Imapala for Innerspeaker, Sia for We Are Born and Cloud Control for Bliss Release.

I haven't had the chance to listen to the Sia record in full, but it sounds OK from the one or two tracks I've heard from it. Obviously, I like the Tame Impala record. I was a bit disappointed with Bliss Release.

The thing I have always disliked about the J Awards is the apparent bias for rewarding artists who already experience high rotation on the station. It seems like a perennial backslapping exercise. I have always thought it would be great to make this about 'best debut record' or something like that. Reward rising talent, instead of rubber stamping bands or artists who already have an established fanbase.

Then again, I think it is fair to reward a well-crafted Australian record. But I also think that many of the nominees in previous years have released work that was questionable at best.

I don't know, perhaps I'm totally wrong here. What do you all think?

Breaking News: The real winner of the JJJ 2009 Hottest 100

I know you might have heard elsewhere, but the real story is that the ABC spoiled Invasion Day for everyone by revealling that Powderfinger's latest album took the top 12 spots in the JJJ Hottest 100. That was then followed by the entire tracklisting of Muse's latest effort, followed by every band David Grohl was involved with or mentioned during the course of 2009. The poll was rounded out by several tracks featuring Kings of Leon covering Eagles songs.

All-Time Top 100 Songs Written by People with Penises: Was the Poll Sexist?

Following on from my post yesterday, looking around the blogosphere and twittersphere, there has been some really interesting commentary regarding the lack of female representation in the hottest 100 list, with many people attempting to find reasons for the gender imbalance.

An article by “Kim” at Mark Bahnisch’s Lavatus Prodeo raised my ears to the issue. Furthermore, Articulate talks about the issues, asking if we can blame the lack of female representation on the listeners.

The Enthusiast goes into a lot more detail and provides an interesting run down on the phenomenon. However, near the end of the article, Mel Campbell suggests that the people voting are inherently sexist for the emergence of list characterised by a lack of females.

“That ought to remind us that participating in a public poll like this makes a public spectacle of our taste in music. Perhaps voters simply didn’t want to be embarrassed by their choices. Perhaps they felt more comfortable admitting they liked mainly sexist rock music.”

Without a doubt, this is a very interesting debate and one that is hard to find any concrete answers of whether the latest hottest 100 countdown consciously excludes females.

In terms of gender representation there is no doubt that there is a severe lack of representation, but was it ‘sexist’ as the above posts would tend to suggest? There are a variety of definitions for being sexist, but basically we can accept that it is a belief that one gender is superior to another and that there are lines of discrimination based on such a belief.

Based on my limited understanding of feminism (which in itself is a sometimes very inconsistent body of ideas that revolve around gender distinctions), I get the feeling that you cannot say that the results of the hottest 100 poll are sexist. Feminism itself isn’t exactly about ‘rights and representation for women’. It is about gender equality, a subtly different concept.

I believe that the charge shouldn’t be ‘Were the results of the Hosttest 100 sexist’ or even ‘was the process used to bring about the results inherently sexist?’ – I think the real question is ‘Are the people who voted in the poll sexist?’, and that is a very hard question to answer.

I have some suspicions that the way in which the votes are calculated advantages certain common popular songs that can be seen as essential to the target demographics musical evolution (for instance, songs people liked ten years ago). I think a fairer way to find out if the pollsters were sexist would be see the gender statistics of every voters top two or three songs, rather than the entire ten.

Then again, does the gender of the artist really matter? Am I’m discriminating on the basis of gender if I happen to prefer The Beastie Boys “Sabotage” to Bjork’s “Hyperballad”? I hope I wouldn’t be.

I know I personally do not think about the gender of the band or performer when considering whether I enjoy a piece of music, art or a book. And I think this view can be a feminist one. People like music because of the emotions they receive from them – the melody, timbre, harmonies, lyrical content and a vast number of other considerations. The fact that a song is sung by a male or female is, most of the time, irrelevant.

In fact, I could think of many reasons why concentrating on the gender of who is producing a piece of art is inherently anti-feminist. By simplifying the results of the poll to simple questions of the sex of the performers who put out a tune, could one ask whether these people are inherently making judgments on art based on gender distinctions and drawing boundaries based on sex? Aren’t we forgetting the content, messages and persuasions of the artists who made the music that what was produced in the hottest 100? I’d wager that, regardless of gender, these musicians and their fans would be the people most likely to support feminist ideals.

By saying this, I perhaps run the risk of accusations that I’m subverting and manipulating the ideals of feminism. I hope I’m not because I have the greatest respect for the ideals of feminism and hope that I’m consciously aware of the pervasive effects of overt and covert gender distinctions that still exist today.

I also note that while this gender distinction has been raised on a number of blogs, I haven’t seen much talk with regards to race or other reflexive ‘isms’ being discussed, a phenomena that is also interesting to note.

Would be interested in hearing your perspectives on what I’ve just written – perhaps I’m wrong. Convince me!

Thanks Zan: Acoustic Phoenix

Gods, I love Zan Rowe sometimes. I particularly love the little tidbit she shared with the world today - some acoustic Phoenix sets.

Here is an acoustic version of probably my favourite Phoenix song "One Time Too Many".



There are a few more on Zan's blog - "Lisztomania" and "1901". I cannot wait to see them in Sydney in early August.

And Zan, if you happen to read this, fancy getting married?

It is All Over: Latest 'Top 100' Songs Compiled.

I’ve just got back from a few days with some friends in Byron Bay where we just kind of lazed around, visited Nimbin, went hiking at Minyon Falls (great little hike up to a great waterfall, despite all the leeches), and watched 'Bruno’. Unfortunately, it was raining most of the weekend so little time was spent on the beach (hence, Bruno). All the while, the Triple J’s Hottest 100 ‘of all time’ was being played through the speakers of the car stereo as we toured back roads of northern New South Wales.

For what it is worth, I was genuinely surprised at what emerged within the top one hundred. I cannot deny that many of the bands and artists that made the list happen to be some of my favourites. As I had predicted, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came in at number one. No big surprise as it had taken the honours the last two times. It is clearly a song that has meant so much for so many people over the last twenty years. Rage Against the Machine made it at number two, Joy Division at number four, and Radiohead had a bunch of songs in the top twenty.

I had predicted that the nature of these sorts of poll as well as the Triple J hype machine would mean that the ‘Kings of Leon’ of this world would dominate, but thankfully this did not really occur. It would seem that the audience realised that a lot of these songs have not reached classical status yet, or simply don’t deserve such status. You can view the entire list here, and you’ll note that the majority of the songs on the list are at least five to ten years old.

It was great to see band’s like ‘The Shins’ and ‘You Am I’ making it, along with 'Midnight Oil' as well 'Massive Attack'. However, it is obvious that the list is dominated by alternative rock music; entire genre’s missing or woefully under-represented.

Jeff Buckley’s cover of Cohen’s "Hallelujah" made it into the list at number three. I must admit that I do have some slight reservations about its inclusion above songs such as “Paranoid Android” (number 5). I’m not arguing that it is not a great cover – arguably the best of all the pretenders - I just think that perhaps "Paranoid Android" deserved to be ahead purely on the basis that it is an original piece of work. I’m a bit outraged that Hilltop Hood’s "Nosebleed Section" made it into the top twenty – an indictment on the state of hip-hop in the current climate. You can probably blame Jay-Z, Kanye West and all those over-commercialised clowns with their violent, misogynist and somewhat confusing messages for drowning out the music of great hip-hop acts like Jurassic 5. It seems that people have become disillusioned with the genre, it isn’t doing anything ‘new’ or interesting anymore, probably because of the fans it tends to attract nowadays. Australian hip-hop is even worse, being extremely formulaic (rap about beer/peace, add beat, add panpipe sample).

While I mentioned that there were a lot of my favourite bands in the list, virtually none of my favourite songs managed to make it in. For the record, here are the songs that I voted for: Guided by Voices - Game Of Pricks / Radiohead - Let Down / The Replacements - I Will Dare / Roy Orbison - Crying / The Cure - In Between Days / Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart / The Cardigans - Lovefool /The Clash - Lost In The Supermarket/ The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby / The Beatles - We Can Work It Out

You'll note that only Joy Division’s track was in my list.

While I believe that, in general, the songs that made the top 100 deserve their status when you take into account the TripleJ listener demographic - this obviously doesn’t mean that they are the best 100 songs of all time (look at the extreme battles that went on in the hottest 100 music forums on the TripleJ website). The fact remains that it is impossible to compile such a meta-narrative due to the subjectivity of music appreciation.

Am I Justified in Being Annoyed? Who Began the Hottest 100?

As I've mentioned before, the third 'hottest 100 of all time' is being currently promoted by Triple J. Apparently, this guy wants to take credit for the idea of 'starting the whole phenomenon'.

However this sort of poll existed in Australia far earlier than Triple J would have you believe. Hell, the name of the poll is derived from the earlier versions. I'm not sure if Triple J would want you knowing this, but it seems that this concept was appropriated from the exact same sort of poll that 4ZzZ have undertaken since the late 1970s.

While I cannot argue that Triple J have marked the 'Hottest 100' brand as their own, there is a part of the story missing here or at least obscured.

In 1977, Brisbane station 4ZzZ began a yearly poll of the 'Hot 100' songs, chosen by the listeners of that station. As they explain on their website (you may have to refresh this a few times to get the 'Zed Fact' but it is there).

4ZzZ launched its glorious tradition of counting down listeners' 100 favourite songs on New Year's Day 1977. More than 10 years later, 2JJJ in Sydney (which employed many ex-Zed staff) began conducting its own Hot 100. Because 4ZzZ held the rights to the name Hot 100, there was a little bit of legal biffo when TripleJ became a national broadcaster, so they changed the name of their survey the "Hottest 100".

It seems to me that someone is not telling the whole truth. Can you claim that if you appropriated a concept from somewhere else, rebrand it, make it national and so forth, that you in fact invented it? I suspect not.

I don't intend this as the beginning of some sort of flame war, but I just have this gut feeling that JJJ are attempting to obscure the history of the Hottest 100. There is the chance that I'm way off the mark, I haven't done any serious research into the issue. I ask am I justified in being annoyed by what appears to be a case of revisionism. I suppose as a history graduate, I've become acutely aware of these sorts of common habits, and enjoy questioning such assumptions and occasionally watching them unravel.

I'm also not claiming the 4ZzZ came up with the concept, just that the concept existed prior to the Hottest 100.

Feel free to discuss with me and inform me if my 'facts' are not correct.

Hottest 100 - Of All Time - Voting Now Open

As I was saying just the other day, the Triple J Hottest 100 of all time (version 3) is now open for voting.

Get along and make sure Kings of Leon don't win for 'Sex is on Fire'. You wouldn't want our next generation thinking we actually liked that shit! (apologies to Kings of Leon fans :P)

Hottest 100 of All Time - Mark 3

Way back in 1988 when Triple J stole the hottest 100 idea from Brisbane's 4ZzZ, Joy Division's seminal post-punk masterpiece "Love Will Tear Us Apart" took the honours of allegedly being the best song of all time according to Triple J listeners.

JJJ repeated the exercise in 1998, where Nirvana’s ‘Smell’s Like Teen Spirit’ became the new sovereign of the Australian alternative music episteme. Funnily enough, Love Will Tear Us Apart dropped a whopping 15 places down to 16th. My, how times change in less than 9 years.


Well, Auntie is at it again, encouraging everyone to vote in the upcoming third ‘Hottest 100 of All Time’. Voting opens on June 1, and closes on July 5th. The list will be announced July 12th. Naturally, you will be able to vote at the Triple J website.

Inevitably, the latest evolution of the ‘hottest 100 of all time’ will be shaped by the aural perspectives of the epoch in which voters exist, and with that in mind, I fully expect a Kings of Leon or MGMT song will be featured prominently at the fountainhead.

Saying that, I suspect that number one will once again go to Nirvana. If you’re born within the last thirty years, you’re pretty much sure to acknowledge ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ as one of your favourites of all time. On the basis that it will likely be in the top ten of many people’s lists, I think it will be once again recognised as the number 1 song of all time, considering the demographic.

I haven’t thought of it much, but, off the top of my head, I would probably put at least some of the following songs down in my top 10.

Guided by Voices – Game of Pricks
Radiohead – Let Down
Roy Orbison – Cryin’
Phoenix – Too Young
The Beach Boys – Don’t Worry Baby
The Beatles – We Can Work it Out
The Clash – Lost in the Supermarket
The Replacements – I Will Dare
The Shins – Saint Simon
Mic Christopher – Heyday
New Order – Bizarre Love Triangle
Belle & Sebastian – Ease Your Feet Into the Sea
The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want to Get Over You
The Lemonheads – Down About It
Wilco – Pot Kettle Black
You Am I – Berlin Chair

And I could keep going forever, but I’ll leave at that for the moment.

A Personal Music Crisis?

This is a bit of a thought piece, but I’ve stumbled upon a personal musical crisis. I’ve been away from Australia for over 10 months now and thus away from the Australian music scene for the same amount of time. When it comes to think about it, other than local Brisbane acts, I have been generally out of touch with Australian music for about two years now. I generally used to listen to the radio in the car, but then I invested in an mp3 car stereo and thus ended my usual exposure to new music died. Triple J dominated my radio and then suddenly I had alternatives.

The defining moment of my alienation from Australian musical tastes became readily apparent when I read the Triple J album of the year awards along with the picks from the Triple J staff. Generally, Kings of Leon, The Presets and MGMT dominated the lists, groups which I’m not particularly fond of. What does that mean? Ten years ago I would have sworn that I’d never get sick of Triple J and the music they chose to play. I would never think to doubt the word of Richard “The King” Kingsmill? But now, I do. Does it mean that everyone has poor taste, or my taste has dramatically changed?

In the case of Kings ofLeon and MGMT, these albums are generally acknowledged by the industry throughout the world that these are great albums. That’s fair enough, however I don’t like them. Does that mean I’m fundamentally out of touch with popular music? From a certain point of view it is quite depressing that I’d prefer listening to the greatest hits of Electric Light Orchestra than putting the ‘Sex on Fire’ single anywhere near my compact disc player.

It is somewhat funny. You grow up thinking your parents tastes in music is fundamentally terrible and that you will never become out of touch with the popular pulse, but already I find it happening. At a mere twenty seven years, I already feel middle aged.