Hello blog, I'm back! I have hopefully survived my final exams. Let's go.

Best Adult Contemporary Album
Neil Finn & Paul Kelly - Goin' Your Way: Not sure if live albums should count but this was one of my favourites from this year. It's even better with the video.

Best Female Artist
I hope Sia, but Iggy has a chance too. Wow, I'm usually so into this category but this year has been a bit meh. Sarah Blasko should've been nominated, but I guess she released it way too early. Maybe she dissed the Australian music industry. That tends to kill your awards/radio career.

Best Group
Anything except Sheppard, please. Man, I thought Of Monsters & Men had unbearably watered down the whole Mumford & Sons sound but this is next-level insipid. Thanks, Brisbane.

Best Independent Release
As above. Maybe Violent Soho should get it.

Best International Artist
Lorde is international now? I mean, Kimbra is from NZ but managed to get Best Female Artist back in 2011. Guess we can't get away with stealing people from them forever.

Best Male Artist
I'm not a fan but Vance Joy seems popular.

Best Pop Release
Sia or 5SOS are acceptable, though I think 5SOS will get it.

Best Rock Album
Ball Park Music - Puddinghead: This is a rock album? OK. This isn't their best but I think they deserve to get something at some point.

Best Urban Album
No real opinion from me, but I think Iggy might get it. Or maybe not, if they couldn't get her to perform.

Breakthrough Artist
5SOS obviously, you can tell that they're going for the mainstream audience this year. They're actually properly successful overseas and stuff too.

Song Of The Year
My vote goes to Chandelier. I actually like that song (7/10), and not just in the "well it's pretty good for something on Nova I guess" way. Fancy and She Looks So Perfect (5/10) would be acceptable too.

Album Of The Year
Sia? She's supported by both mainstream and jjj. I don't think Chet Faker and Dan Sultan were pushed that hard. Where the heck is Total Control?

Emma Louise: Apparently a remix of Jungle is a hit somewhere in the world. I'm not usually into remixes, but this seems to be an improvement. Mostly because I thought the original was too repetitive, and this adds a lot of textural variety to it.

Megan Washington: Saw her live at Pitt Street. Her records come nowhere close to doing her singing justice. I still don't get why they're produced the way they are. Hopefully she releases a live album one day.

Arcade Fire: Funeral turned 10 years old on the 14th. Everyone still loves it, thankfully. This is the most interesting article about it, I think. It's still one of my favourite albums.

Peter Escott: They have music in Tasmania!? This is great.

Sounds Like Sunset: Putting this here for when I need to look back at what 2014 releases I actually listened to. This is pretty decent.

Mere Women: Getting a fair bit of play on Double J. That's good.

Pitchfork: They published a bunch of lists lately. Only really looked at the singles one though. Agree with Oblivion topping the list, not sure about the rest. There are 5 songs involving Kanye in the top 100, and I think it's kind of boring to put too many songs by one artist in a list.

Linked Hey QT to my friend while we were sitting a corridor waiting for class and she decided to play it out of her phone. Thank god we were not on a train, because that would have caused a riot. It's like an inferior rehash of Barbie Girl. I guess it's so bad that it's rebellious. Still don't like it.

The Apartments: Mr Somewhere gets added to my "Ambivalent Songs About Brisbane/Queensland" playlist thanks to mention in Pig City (the book).

The Church: Starfish is really growing on me. Four stars, at least. I also like Anna Miranda.

Double J: J Files are back. Sort of listened to the Jeff Buckley one without paying much attention. I'm not really a fan, to be honest. I can handle only so much sad man music.

Kimbra: Listened to the new album a few times, felt nothing. I got tired of 90s Music. Pitchfork gave it a mildly negative review, but I know that writer actually likes Kimbra. So it really is an underwhelming album.

Taylor Swift: Initial bubblings about cultural appropriation, but then the sort of people who like to talk about that moved on to raving over Nicki Minaj. Song is acceptable, but I cringe at the lyrics. Not sure how it got to no. 1 in Australia, but I guess that's not really hard.

Nicki Minaj: The song itself starts out strong, but derails towards the end. The video does the exact opposite. Loved NGE crossovers on Tumblr. Perhaps a bit too explicit to really become popular mainstream.

Kev Carmody: Decided to give him a better listen after going through the 150 Queensand Icons list.

I really, really feel this review. Reminds me of the people moshing to How To Make Gravy in the Paul Kelly doco I saw last month. Also reminds me of when a girl in high school who sang From Little Things... at assembly and her accompanist gave up before she finished all the verses.

The Painted Ladies: Finally, I'm listening to something released this year. Except it's covers of a 1973 album by Vic Simms. Liking Ed Kuepper's take on Stranger In My Country. I've been hearing it on Double J for a while, but thought it was part of his new solo album.

Missy Higgins is releasing an album of covers. Tracklist is promising, as well as Jherek Bischoff producing. Don't know if she's intense enough to do Shark Fin Blues justice though. Amanda Palmer is doing her darndest to be considered an honourary Australian. No thank you.

Bluejuice are breaking up at the end of the year. Well, I'm glad they never made it overseas to embarrass us like Jet did. I'd always assumed they were a Brisbane band because of the upbeat, cheery annoyingness, but it turns out they're from Sydney. We can make fun of Nickelback writing the same song over and over, but if it's a local it's cool? Argh!

Megan Washington: New song My Heart Is A Wheel is very Preatures-ish. Best one from this album so far.

Angus and Julia Stone: Their new album dropped to not much fanfare, probably because I don't listen to the radio anymore. One Guardian reviewer loves it. Another (also for the Guardian, but not the Australian part!) doesn't. A lot of random people giving it 7/10.

What do I think? It's a lot better than their separate solo material. The fuller production makes it sound less monotonous than Down The Way. I don't hear anything here that will be played to death like Big Jet Plane, but I don't know if that's good or bad.

Went to Queensland on the holidays. Will mostly be talking about what I listened on the 31-hour train ride between Brisbane and Cairns.

Paul Kelly: Watched the doco last night. Really odd to see all those youths moshing and cheering to How To Make Gravy at the end. Sometimes I forget that a lot of "normal" white people grow up with this kind of music because of their parents. My one Asian friend who also likes him calls it "white privilege". Also on the train playlist: The Sunlander.

Augie March: There is now an odd video for After The Crack Up. It's grown on me a bit more. I've been playing Toorak Fires a lot too. It makes me think of Arcade Fire for some reason. I wonder why we never got a real Australian Arcade Fire expy promo'd by Triple J.

Darren Hanlon: I really need to go through his discography properly. Ends Of The City is a new favourite. "To see the city from that point on every line/ Where buildings kiss the trees". Reminds me that I have to line bash Brisbane one day.

Ed Kuepper: The Way I Made You Feel was a standout when I saw him live, and I put him on the playlist because I needed more Bris/QLD artists. Hadn't seen the video until just now, but I'd already associated the song with goods yards somehow.

Misc. Jingles: Check out the offical Queensland Day song. I unironically like the instrumental section...

Megan Washington: This version of Rich Kids is great. Meh to the rest of her material and that indie white girl image/character she's got going though. Dunno what happened with QANTAS either.