AMP judges criticise their own2012 AMP shortlist

Fri 17th Feb, 2012 in Local News

Criticism of the Australian Music Prize (The AMP) is expected in music forums, over beers at the pub and from bands who missed out on the shortlist cut, but this year even the AMP judges are openly questioning the prize list.

Three of the judges have spoken out criticising the shortlist for being “safe” and for favouring pop and mainstream rock artists. There are 40 judges on the voting panel, which is made up of musicians, music retailers and critics.

Two weeks after the short list was announced, AMP judge and Street Press Australia’s Group Managing Editor Andrew Mast has taken the dramatic decision to remove himself from the final stage of the final judging process.

“I have informed AMP that I won’t be participating in the final vote,” Mast announced today. “I don’t think this year’s shortlist is a true indication of the quality and variety of great Australian music that was released in 2011. I believe the change in the voting system this year meant that some of the smaller releases that fell outside of the mainstream were overlooked. I have championed the AMP since its instigation, and will keep supporting them in the future, but each year it seems to get harder and harder for non-pop and mainstream rock artists to be shortlisted.”

Mast says that acts like Fred Smith, Melodie Nelson, Joelstics and Oscar + Martin “would have made the shortlist in the past but now seem to slip between the cracks.”

Mikey Cahill is still one the judging panel, but used his Rock City column in Melbourne’s Herald Sun judge, last week to complain that the list is “very Triple J friendly [and] a safe collection of albums. This year’s judging process cast a wider net but ended up with a collection of records that failed to really push the envelope. The judging process needs an overhaul and the whole thing needs a shake-up. Evidently, there needs to be more focus on braver, bolder records like the first ever winner of The AMP: The Drones’ Wait Long By The River and The Bodies Of Your Enemies Will Float By.

Cahill nominates HTRK’s Work, Work, Work, Lost Animal’s Ex-Tropical, Oscar+Martin’s For You, Big Scary’s Vacation, Jonti’s Twirligig and Teeth and Tongue’s Tambourine as the records unfairly overlooked by the judging panel.

While in the Sydney Morning Herald Bernard Zuel, another member of the AMP judging panel, has warned that the short list for what he dubbed the “thinking man’s ARIA awards” could be boycotted in the future by hip-hop if they’re are continually overlooked. “We may see some Australian hip hop artists ask publicly and loudly whether they should bother nominating for the AMP,” Zuel explained. “In fact, one Melbourne label refused for several years to submit its artists, possibly suspecting it was a waste of time in a local music industry dominated by pop and rock at executive and media level. This even as the public seem very keen to buy hip hop and fill venues putting on hip hop.”

The albums Zuel claims have been unfairly left of the list this year? Phrase’s Babylon, Drapht’s The Life Of Reilly, Future Shade by The Herd and Falling And Flying by 360.

This isn’t the first time Zuel has attacked his fellow judge’s decisions. In 2009 he complained about the lack of women nominated for the award, telling his readers that “as someone who has participated in all the judging, I can tell you that in no year did a woman or a female act seriously contend in the final stages of voting.”

2012 AMP shortlist albums

Abbe May – Design Desire
Gotye – Making Mirrors
Adalita – Adalita
Boy & Bear – Moonfire
Gurrumul – Rrakala
Jack Ladder & The Dreamlanders – Hurtsville
Kimbra – Vows
The Middle East – I Want That You Are Always Happy
The Jezabels – Prisoner