This has been sitting in my drafts for months, but it might be relevant again with the ARIAs coming up.

Mr Tastemaker once gave me Angus & Julia Stone as an example of good, current, Australian music. Since we agreed on practically everything but this, I must figure out what the appeal of them is. For closure or something.

3/10, but I am going to keep editing this throughout today because I have no classes.

Sarah Blasko's new song. It's okay. I'm of the unusual opinion that she peaked with What The Sea Wants. Hoping that she actually did something interesting with the orchestra.

Lisa Mitchell's new song. Reminds me of some J-Pop I used to listen to. The melody is the same as something; I just can't remember what. Thumbs down.

Clare Bowditch's new album. I thought she was a folk singer, but now that's apparently not fashionable so she's doing the ye olde Tumblrcore? I'm definitely getting a Lana Del Rey vibe from that cover. Will probably be nominated for an ARIA because she always is.

Pitchfork pans some old favourites. Well, not really, because a 7 is not a pan. I agree with the AnCo and The xx reviews, but I didn't like those two much to begin with. On the other hand, the DB & St Vincent score says that the album was only 0.3 better than Born To Die, which is pretty wrong.

Pitchfork lauds old favourite. It was better than the aforementioned albums, but not better than Veckatimest. I dunno. They're not really my thing.

The ACO's old brochures are a sight to behold. I wonder why old graphic design looks so bad now. Or did those always look terrible? (Richard's face is timeless though...) Looking at the new brochures sitting on the table, I have to say that Sydney Symphony wins this year. Or, even better, this, because Helvetica + good-looking director = yay.

X Factor AU sucks. I know, reality TV always sucks, but this isn't even enjoyable in the guilty pleasure way. At least the people on The Voice could hit the right notes.

Edited 24/09, after the jump!

Yeah, every "Best Albums of [timeframe]" list is dominated by men, and every time it happens, people have to write some hissy fit about it. But what if I just happen to like those white-boys-with-guitars bands more? And what if a whole lot of people, like the majority of people, share that preference? What can anybody do about that?

From what I've heard, most female artists sing pop songs about love, e.g. relationship failure. Girls listen to these songs when they are experiencing relationship failure. When I'm not feeling that, my reaction to sad ballads or whatever tends to be, "Ugh, shut up and get over it." I get annoyed with male singers too (Oberst, Gibbard, etc.), but most girl music is vocal/lyric-centric pop, whereas there are male bands that put vocals low in the mix, sing nonsense words, or are just plain instrumental, so I might not notice that they're being whiny.

It's a bit like the different types of tumblogs people have. Some are entirely devoted to those damned pictures with complaints or sappy quotes on them, or text posts about the friendzone. They are annoying. Others are more subtle, and post art or hipster photos that subtly show their general boredom with life. They are OK to follow.

I don't have many feelings about classical music, but I'll post my prediction for the top ten, based on past polls.

• Ravel - Boléro
• Faure - Requiem
• Massenet - Meditation from Thaïs
• Saint-Saëns - Symphony 3 
• Satie - Gymnopédies
• Debussy - Clair de Lune
• Bizet - Carmen
• Delibes - Flower Duet
• and two other things by one of the aforementioned composers, probably Debussy.

These sorts of things always end in a mess. According to Wikipedia, Chopsticks was actually no. 7 in the piano countdown. Surprisingly, Fur Elise was no. 15. 4'33" was no. 40, despite not really being for piano. It didn't even place in the 20th Century countdown. What.