Australia Day

My shindig got a decent crowd again, although nowhere near the huge showing of last year. I had a good time chatting with people and hanging out. Are lots of unhealthy food. Didn't really drink anything, barring one cider at about 10pm.

The Hottest 100 was one of the worst they've had in years. And this is isn't me complaining that they don't have all my favourites, because they rarely/never do. It was crap even for a Hottest 100. So many shitty Australian punkish pop/rock tracks by bands like Kisschasy, The Living End, etc. Lots of awful Australian hip-hop by groups like Butterfingers. Lots of overhyped UK guitar-pop from groups like Bloc Party and Kaiser Cheifs. And fucking Bernard Fanning's "Wish You Well" got #1? Come again?

Particularly disappointing given how much better last year's countdown was (one of the best in quite a few years). There were a few shining distractions in there, though - The White Stripes, Beck, Gorillaz, Emiliana Torrini, The Mountain Goats, Datarock, Franz Ferdinand, Ben Lee and a couple of others ranged from decent all the way up to excellent. For the most part though, it was just crap. Especially disappointing given how much good music came out this year. Stupid Australian radio listeners with their complete lack of anything resembling taste. They should just let me pick 100 songs next time. That'd be better.

Enough ranting. Time for breakfast.

Something that occured to me

One of the things that bugs me the most about the Hottest 100, is the tendency of the voters to vote for the artist rather than the song. It seems that as long as they release a single, groups like The Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Powderfinger, etc are bound to make the Top 10.

I realise that these are all groups I don't particularly like, but they've had songs make the top 10 that were easily from the lower end of their own personal quality spectrum. The only reason they show up so high is because people vote for their favourite artists, and not so much for their favourite songs.

It's for the same reason that bands like Wolfmother get half a dozen songs in the top 10. I understand that they're a very popular group (yes, I think they suck), but I don't think anyone could realisticly argue that, on a song-by-song basis, they released 6% of the year's best music. It's fucking stupid, and it means that 4 or 5 other (most likely better) songs miss out on deserved airplay.

It's annoying, because it means the listening public will let these bands get away with running on autopilot, simply because they have name recognition.

I just wish people would be a little more demanding of musicians.

Attention art lovers!

My fiancee is doing artwork commissions. If you'd like to get her to draw/paint/sketch/whatever something for you, for a reasonable price, then you should take a wander over to her livejournal --> originalnilson --> for more details.

She's very good. And the money raised will help her pay for the next semester of her art course at TAFE. A very worthy cause, indeed.