polaroids of androids

Our favourite albums of 2008

As I was looking through the 106 reviews contributed and written for this site throughout the year I started thinking to myself "daaaaaaaamn 2008 was a dope ass year for music". I mean, even though there wasn't a single release that rose above all as a clear standout there was still an absolute shitload of fantastic music released. The best thing about it all as well is the fact that a large amount of our musical highlights came from Australian artists.

With 2008 just about to die from an overdose of NYE bright-coloured jello shots it's time to collate our highlights of the past twelve months into something that resembles a 'best-of' list. It's the internet. It's kind of 'the law'.

So without further ado, here are the albums released in 2008 that made us thankful that we had been born with ears...

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Person Of The Year 2008

Betsy Watkins of West Brompton in South Australia - the winner of our Person The Year award for the past 46 years.

Thank you to everyone who voted in our inaugural Person Of The Year award. We have just finished grouping together the amazing 14 million votes that we received from all seventeen corners of EARTH. A truly overwhelming response.

Unfortunately, the votes of the people were scrapped at some point during the final counting process and the final decision of our illustrious award was handed over to our six 'super delegates'. Democracy rocks!

And the winner is....

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Photos: Nevereverland @ Hordern Pavilion - 13/12/2008

Modular's 10th anniversary party, captured in all it's glory by two of Sydney's finest live music photographers.

Photos by Daniel Boud and Mic Wernej.

Hercules and Love Affair

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The biggest disappointments of 2008

Under a Internet Act Of 2004 we are legally bound to post some lists in December. These lists (by design) are used to summarise the year in easy to understand bullet points and for the next week or so we will put together some carefully constructed summaries that hopefully capture our love, hate and concise feelings towards the last 12 months.

So let's kick this off with a list of things that let us down, angered us, frustrated us and made us laugh and/or cry.

TV On The Radio - Dear Science
Ok, so maybe we are in the minority with our thoughts of this album BUT we didn't want TVOTR to release a jazzed-up-pop-funk record. We wanted the love child of Cookie Mountain and Bloodthirsty Babes - with just a sprinkle of jizz from the Young Liars EP. Sure, Dead Science is still very very enjoyable BUT it's not good enough to lick the perspiration off the face of either of their previous two records.

At The Drive-In didn't reform
Mars Volta continue to make guitar masturbatory jams and Sparta continue to be boring emo pricks. Hurry up and repair the wounds and complete your destiny. Extra disappointment: Minor Threat also didn't reform.

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Our favourite Australian/New Zealand artists of 2008

Every year Sean A Reminder asks a bunch of music nerds, bloggers, DJ's and 'hip peeps' to compile a list of their favourite Australian and/or New Zealand artists for the year. The only rule is that they must be an 'active' artist or group (ie. not broken up). He then takes everyone's lists, mashes them together into a special machine powered by Canadian Club, lust and a single piece of Thom Yorke's hair to create The Super List.

The results of this year's poll are IN! You can view the full final list HERE.

Once again we had the honour of contributing to this great project AND (for once) it seems like some of our picks actually made the final top 28 list. We are all mainstream and cool now.

The list that we submitted:

1. Die! Die! Die!
Still the best LIVE band in the world. If you disagree I will wrestle you.

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Feature: I am cancelling our friendship, Q Magazine (and my subscription)

Hey! Q Magazine!

Yeah, hi. Listen, I know things have been strained with us lately. I guess "lately" has a somewhat loose application here, as I am more specifically referring to the last few years, beginning around 2002. But still, every now and then I would see something on your cover to catch my eye (even through your thoroughly horrible and unnecessary redesign), and I would remember what brought us together in the first place. The reviews mainly, are still minor masterpieces, but your feature coverage with your tendency to trumpet Razorlight and Keane (and not forgetting your regrettable mid-nineties loves of Gay Dad and Texas) and all manner of other snooze-rock lightweights as the Next Most Important Band! EVER! was tiresome in the least. And so often my eyes would drift and more reliably someone else was interviewing someone vastly more interesting, like Lemmy say, and sticking his horrible mug on the cover and it was wonderful. Sold! We all stray, it is true.

And so it was Q Magazine, that many of your numbers left (your founders, no less!) and started up WORD which some might say now dominates the Dad Rock market, and that's okay as some others might say that Dad Rock is actually my favourite genre, even though I was born after 1980 (WAIT WAIT! MGMT! I know them! That means 'Management' -- how clever! Etc), and I had less and less reason to ever open your shiny pages. Especially with the lists, the endless, endless, increasingly pointless lists! "The Top 1000 Most Seminal Gigs In The History of The World, Ever! (EVER!)" "Beards! Rock's Most Essential Accoutrement! We Rate Them!" "Our Top Ten Top Ten Lists of ALL TIME (Until Next Year!)", Argh, make it stop! And before I knew it years had passed and we were both seeing other people and sometimes these things are just for the best. I'm sure you'd agree.

Though in other times of nostalgia-tinged regret, I cast my eye over my lovingly collected (and dutifully hauled) collection of your issues from the 90s dispayed in our house and I remember that yes, actually, there is that issue where Bono and Elton John interview each other, and that such as a wondrous thing as this did happen and happened only because of you, and noone else ever scored such a coup (strange as that interview was, and highlighted most wonderfully by Elton John's reported feelings of mortification at having one of his speakers blow out at the exact moment when Bono and Edge had brought over the latest unreleased U2 album to his house on the Cote D'azure where "they live up the road," so they were forced to listen to it in mono, and oh my God, yes, the unbearable pain of the incredibly wealthy! Marvelous) and at these times I forget all the bad times and only remember how exciting it all used to be and think that I was terribly wrong to let you go and think, yes, I'm going to rekindle our love. I can barely get to the newsagent fast enough.

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POA (version 18)

As you have probably noticed: a) there haven't been too many updates around these parts over the past few weeks and; b) we have given the site a bit of face lift. Actually, it's a little bit more like a liposuction operation as we have been crazily removing code and generally cleaning things up all over the place. It started off as a little trim BUT just like that terrible haircut you are going to be rocking all summer - we just didn't know where to end it.

So here we are. Ending Da 2008 with a few changes to the way this site looks BUT more importantly how it works:

Events (aka 'shows') is more of a weekly planner now. We also recommend shows that think you should go to (if you want to see us and give us a high and/or low five).

One of the main NEW things are featured items - like what you are reading right now. The plan is to keep these rotating every other day with NEW and FRESH 'things'. We found that items we really wanted you to see (ie. an interview with some band called Talons) quickly got pushed down the site with the old layout, falling down underneath shitty news items about shit bands who got added to some shit festival. Less shit? No, more featured items.

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Less politics, more hip-hop

Christopher Reeves complex.

Come on, does anybody really give a flying left fook about this whole 'presidential race' thing? It doesn't really matter who is the leader of the FREE world, we will still be in 'potato lines' in about six months. You know, like Russia (circa Soviet Union). The economy is crashing like a DJ AM plane being flown by the drummer from SUM 41. On drugs.

Oh, but politics could be sooooo much more exciting/awesome/legendary. It's a 'what if' game. Like imagine MIGHTY Mos mudda-phucking Def was President...

".. America would be cool again".

Yes. Agreed Mos. America is LAME. America is the new Canada. Canada is the new Zealand. And Zealand is the new Cook Islands. Etc.

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Interview: Talons

It is no secret that we lust the music of Sydney punk trio Talons. Now, with their debut album completed and only a few months away from being released, our high school crush has evolved into a full blown sexually tense romance and/or dangerous stalking.

We recently got the privilege/opportunity to talk to Christian J Best, lead singer and guitarist of the group, about the album, the awesomeness of Slayer, band members becoming Nazis and the joy of stabbing Kyle Sanderlands with an ARIA award.

So, the album is finished now, right? How does it sound? If you were forced to describe it in four words what would they be?

It sounds a bit like: pointy yellish funtime speakertickle.

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Random thoughts on the 2008 ARIAs

Tina Arena - still the benchmark for all Australian music.

Every year after the ARIAs I get angry at those that win, hurl abuse (and empty whiskey bottles) at the television and promise myself that I won't watch the shitty awards show the next year. But when they roll around again I tune in for another does of cringe-worthy circle jerking and dull musical acts.

I think it would be stupid to ignore the importance the awards play as part of the local music scene. Even if the artists they acknowledge are NOT the best and those making the decisions seem painfully out of touch - they are still the only LARGE-scale local televised music awards. As much as we like to think they are irrelevant, they matter to a lot of people. People that make decisions that can dramatically effect artists. Like people who decide what songs go into car commercials.

Sales of those that win will surely get a boost and for some artists winning an ARIA might mean they can finally get enough attention (read: ca$h) to quit their day job and focus completely on their musical career (although, I think most of those that win nowadays have already 'made it').

With all that said, the show last night sucked. Painfully sucked. Maybe even the most suckiest EVER.

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