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grattan

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2010 AMP nominations

Wed 2nd Feb, 2011 in Local News

Following the ‘controversy’ of Lisa Mitchell winning the AMP last year the 2010 short list of nominations features a relatively predictable group of critically acclaimed records including FasterLouder’s best album of 2010 – Tame Impala.

Previous winners Eddy Current Suppression Ring receive a nod for their latest album Rush To Relax, while Gareth Liddard the lead singer of the 2005 prize winners The Drones wins a nod for his debut solo release Strange Tourist. While The Holidays have already won an AMP for 2010 – picking up $15,000 as the winners of the Red Bull Award for outstanding potential.

Noteworthy absences include albums from My Disco, The Break, Parades, Super Wild Horses, Washington, Straight Arrows, Sia and Hottest 100 conquering acts including Angus and Julia Stone, Birds of Tokyo and Little Red.

2010 AMP nominations:

Cloud Control – Bliss Release
Dan Kelly – Dan Kelly’s Dream
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax
Gareth Liddard – Strange Tourist
Pikelet – Stem
Richard In Your Mind – My Volcano
Sally Seltman – Heart That’s Pounding
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker
The Holidays – Post Paradise

The AMP 2010 winner will be announced March 3rd at the Annandale in Sydney.

FasterLouder's Best Albums of 2010 (25-1)

December 8th, 2010

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sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Geez. The Break, My Disco and Sia were such amazing albums. I feel like if the The Break's album had been released by a new local band and not a kind of reformed 'super-group' it would have made people lose their shit. That said, very happy to see Dan Kelly in there!

deanoss

deanoss said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Nothing wrong with Lisa Mitchell IMO..

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

The Break's album got old quickly. Fun the first few listens, annoying the next few.

Would have loved to have seen Otouto, Clare Bowditch and Parades get a mention, but list is pretty great.

daverh

daverh said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Congrats to the Holidays, such a tidy disc that.

grattan

grattan said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Liddiard's 4 nomination in the 6 years the award has been running.

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

MAB I couldn't disagree more, it such a beautiful album. I stil go back to it now, probably lkisten to it once a week. Just so amazingly constructed. So far from annoying.Clare Bowditch album , as much as I love her as a performer, was just so MOR for me.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

It's just, everything that I hear on that record I've heard before a billion times by other acts. It didn't do a great deal for me.

Interesting. I honestly think it's her best - her new band certainly gave her a fresher sound and I loved the songwriting.

crob

crob said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

i liked sally seltman – heart that’s pounding

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Different Strokes ey. We were just discussing in the office how it is the most inventive surf rock album to be released in over 30 years.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Mainly because no-one's been making much of it in the past thirty years.

JeremySC

JeremySC said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Annnyywwaay, these are all damn good albums:

Cloud Control – Bliss Release
Dan Kelly – Dan Kelly’s Dream
Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax
Gareth Liddard – Strange Tourist
Pikelet – Stem
Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

Gareth by a mile though

shazie

shazie said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Would've hoped for parades and the seabellies to be on the list, especially parades. Best aussie album last year I'd say. Still, nice list of artists though.

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Yeah, they've all been busy making MOR adult contemporary albums...;-)

say_aha said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

no washington haha. i am hoping tame impala become the first band to win the j award and AMP because i'd say its unfortunate that the j award is awarded first as the AMP would definitely be of more worth

Braveheart81

Braveheart81 said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

$30,000 more worth to be precise.

Although the increased airplay on Triple J is of some monetary value.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Yeah, Bowditch really should have stuck to her thrash metal roots.

I still don't quite get what "adult contemporary" means; and I don't think I ever will.

berlinchair101

berlinchair101 said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

I think "contemporary" is used to say they are modern and popular without saying "pop" which may deter the target demographic

grattan

grattan said on the 2nd Feb, 2011

Interesting comments on Twitter:

urthboy - I was supposed to be at this #amp announcement this morning.

domalessio - Me too! I wonder what people will make of the Short List? RT @urthboy I was supposed to be at this #amp announcement this morning.

urthboy - @domalessio ppl will think it's more of the same - at least this is what I'm hearing

urthboy - i sat on the #amp judging committee. 1/2 of the shortlisted artists were discussed. the other 1/2 went thru w/out any discussion

urthboy - the undiscussed records went thru automatically as they'd been the 'most' favourited before the day (via email)

urthboy - cant believe only 7 hip hop acts entered the #amp

grattan

grattan said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Interesting stuff in the SMH article about the awards:

The experienced artist manager Rae Harvey, whose company represents bands such as the Living End, says that while the prize ''is considered incredibly important by many artists due to the calibre of judges involved'', early wins for critically acclaimed but generally alternative-to-mainstream acts such as the Drones, the Mess Hall and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, didn't impress her.

''Personally I was a little dubious to begin with, as it seemed to me that the bands winning each year were those highly regarded by those judgmental, misinformed self-proclaimed music experts who spend more time on music forums than listening to records,'' Harvey says.

''All was forgiven from my end when [last year] Lisa Mitchell won - a major label artist who sold a lot of records and was also critically acclaimed by winning … It showed that maybe I'd misjudged [it] and perhaps they really were trying to ensure the award was given to the artist who made the best album.''

The prize is judged by a 30-member panel of artists, critics, broadcasters and retailers who listen to up to 200 submitted albums. As Murphy sees it, its strength and weakness is that it is ''about art and one person's view on that piece of art [but] it's a peer listening process and the people who are doing that are known to be good listeners''.

Not that all opinion is positive. As Catherine Haridy, the new chairman of the Association of Artist Managers, notes, the prize has ''inspired mixed feelings''. Some bloggers last year accused the award of avoiding already popular acts, and hip-hop and electronic artists have felt excluded by a perceived guitar-rock dominance.

The producer Richard Tamplenizza, of the hip-hop label Elefant Tracks and hip-hop crew the Herd, says he backs the prize but would like to see a broader representation of music.

''While I like a lot of indie, guitar-driven bands, I think looking back over six years there were some really important records that came out in electronic and hip-hop, those sorts of genres, that warranted more attention,'' Tamplenizza says.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Everett True is cooking up some conspiracy theories over on Collapse Board, too:

To that list we can add kyü. Oh wait. They’re not even on the shortlist. Ah well, that saves any red faces on the judges’ part from having to explain why they weren’t given the award. (HINT: they’re female – and a female won last year. Can’t be seen to be partaking in anything that could be construed as positive discrimination now, can we chaps? This is Australia.)

OK. To that list we can obviously add Eddy Current Suppression Ring – there have only been five winners of the AMP to date, and Eddy Current have already snaffled one, and it would be absurd to give them a second one so soon. Right? Right???? Right.

Sally Seltmann stands no chance. Not indie enough. Not male enough. (Astonishing how similar the taste of the 29 or 49 or whatever number it is of the Australian alternative music establishment is, when it comes down to it, don’t you think? Makes you wonder why they bother having so many judges.) A solo female performer, too – and we can’t have a reminder of last year’s M People moment, Lisa Mitchell. I’d also discount Pikelet, sadly. Can’t see Evelyn going down too well with the Red Bulls of this world. Plus… oh, you got it.

And then:

The AMP purports to represent the best in Australian music and yet, in a year when Australian hip-hop and hardcore were generally agreed to be particularly strong, there isn’t a SINGLE representation from either genre on the shortlist.

It raises a few, very fundamental, questions. Is the Australian music industry – ‘alternative’ or not – racist at its heart? Or is the absence of pretty much anything that isn’t male white indie more a reflection of poor selection criteria applied when it came to choosing the judges… i.e. it literally was a case of drinking in the right Melbourne and Sydney pubs. Folk have pointed out that only a handful of hip-hop acts applied to be considered for the AMP. Well of course only a handful did. They knew they weren’t going to win. (Let’s not even start getting into the whole thorny issue of having an award that is supposed to represent the best Australian music and yet automatically excludes anyone who hasn’t applied.)

grattan

grattan said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Everett True is a bloody conspiracy theory.

berlinchair101

berlinchair101 said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Everette True is the journalistic equivilant of an old man yelling at clouds.

He just says stuff so people remember that people once cared about what he has to say.

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Yeah, Bowditch really should have stuck to her thrash metal roots.

I still don't quite get what "adult contemporary" means; and I don't think I ever will.

I never implied she wrote anything else but MOR music.

'adult contemporary - uninspiring, elevator music, usually heard at over 40s dinner parties played at a moderate inoffensive level.

oldgregg

oldgregg said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

the holidays, they deserve so much more recognition.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

No they don't. They're rubbish.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Oh come on! It's hardly fair to compare Bowditch to Train or The Fray.

oldgregg

oldgregg said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Braveheart81

Braveheart81 said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

I liked the quote in this little passage.

The ARIAs have apparently become so bling and circumstance that the Australian Music Prize is looming as the most prestigious gong. The Holidays were among hopefuls at the shortlist announcement yesterday for this year's prize. The list is selected by a 30-member panel of music critics, broadcasters and retailers. Leading manager Andy Cassell provided an summary of the difference between the awards: ''The more the ARIAs suck, the better the Australian Music Prize looks," Cassell said. ''Consequently, and thanks largely to the car crash we all witnessed at the Opera House last year, I think this year more than ever people will be looking to the Australian Music Prize to restore more than a little 'cred' to the Australian music industry.''

berlinchair101

berlinchair101 said on the 3rd Feb, 2011

Using the word cred in inverted commas lost him and any cred he thought he had.

http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Rob/streetcred.png

SlowerQuieter

SlowerQuieter said on the 4th Feb, 2011

The Break's album got old quickly. Fun the first few listens, annoying the next few.

Would have loved to have seen Otouto, Clare Bowditch and Parades get a mention, but list is pretty great.

I love 'Church of the Open Sky', to me it's a really rich and rewarding album that merits repeated listening. I don't find it annoying or boring at all.

I knew Parades wouldn't be on the shortlist but part of me still hoped they would.

Braveheart81

Braveheart81 said on the 4th Mar, 2011

Cloud Control win!

Demosthenes

Demosthenes said on the 4th Mar, 2011

From [url=http://www.thevine.com.au/music/news/cloud-control-with-the-australian-music-prize20110303.aspx]the Vine:

"Blue Mountains band Cloud Control have won the only gift a musician really cares about: cash."

Everrett doesn't even like music awards, one of the few things I agree with him on: if you need an award for validation of your music, youse got problems. Cash on the other hand, every struggling muso needs and loves cash.

MorningAfterboy

MorningAfterboy said on the 4th Mar, 2011

So happy for them :)

Listened to the album again last night, it's so great.

SlowerQuieter

SlowerQuieter said on the 4th Mar, 2011

Great news, I love that album. Such a great and consistent feel that they maintain throughout the record, very few bands are able to do that well these days.