Lorde: Apparently "Royals" has been No. 1 in New Zealand for a while. I love the "I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies" line, and the pre-chorus thing is catchy, but something about the song makes it feel like it's twice the length it really is. Might be because it peaks so early. (7/10)

Passenger: Meanwhile in Australia, "Let Her Go" is topping the chart. Father borrowed the album from the library some time ago, and the most interesting thing I got out of it was that a member of the ACO played the violin on it. Worse than Ed Sheeran. (3/10)

Classic FM: Final Fantasy soundtrack came 3rd in their Hall of Fame poll. That's like saying the complete works of Beethoven count as one piece. I don't think video game music is any worse than film soundtracks. Might even be better, since you have to put up with it for a much longer time. (Canon in D is there at 18, and that's something I definitely don't need to hear again.)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: New album leaked in terrible quality, so I can't have a proper opinion on it yet. "Sacrilege" is average and I think the gospel choir is gimmicky, "Mosquito" is kind of annoying, and one of the later tracks has a random rap that doesn't quite fit. (6/10)

Spotify: The random Australian sportspeople/D list celebrities that Spotify suggests I follow seem to have better taste than most of my friends. Except for Johnny Ruffo. I like that Bernard Fanning has a "Whip Cracking Songs" playlist.

Was on holiday, so not much to say.

BBC Radio: Radio 6 is like a weirder, better Triple j. I tuned in at some point in the afternoon and they were playing a bunch of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" covers spliced together. Radio 1 played a lot of "alt" stuff like Imagine Dragons and Villagers alongside Nicki Minaj.

Olly Murs: I had been assuming that "Troublemaker" was a Maroon 5 song until I saw the music video.

Harlem Shake: While I was in London, I went to have dinner with some family friends. I overheard their teenage son trying to explain this meme to his mother. It's now No. 1 on Billboard and ARIA. Apparently it was BNM'd in May last year. I'm yet to hear it on the radio.

ABC Classic 100: 5 out of eight predictions correct, 7/10 if you count the "other things by those composers". Cool. Suite Bergamasque (ie. Clair de Lune) juuuust missed it at no. 11, Massenet and Delibes at 14 and 15 respectively.

Spotify: Spotify is horrible and seems to pick the worst things you've listened to to put in your top artists/tracks. The Pitchfork disciples therefore have theirs hidden, but I can still see using Swarm.fm. You can't win. Amusingly, the flamboyant Nicki Minaj fan is now listening to Bon Iver. That's what uni does to you, I guess.

CDs: Counted my CDs and marked them as owned on RYM. There's a few I haven't marked, but I don't know what they are! I also felt a bit sad looking at Pixies and Talking Heads albums, because I doubt that I'll want to touch them again for a while.

Festivals: My white, upper-middle class, Triple J listener friends always complain of drunk bogans at festivals. Looking at photos though, they could easily be mistaken for drunken bogans. I bet the people they complain about are just other middle-class kids.

Identity: I have learnt from conversations in my chemistry lab that people actually do use the term "Triple J" to describe their music taste. A lot of information conveyed in one word and one letter. I am not ignorant enough to say "everything", so I guess I'll go with "elitist", like one guy in this article.

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.

This week in music: this and one prominent response. Now there's a response to that response!

I could be all, "I'm under twenty and I pay for music," but that would be as bad as "I'm a girl and I play computer games." I have nothing to contribute to this debate. Let me find something else to talk about.

Oddly enough, the majority of my acquaintances aren't torrenting music: they don't know how to do that. From what I've heard, most of their music comes from a few of their more technologically competent brothers. That, or they're using a Youtube-to-MP3 converter, which results in terrible low-res files. If I were a musician, I'd really prefer for you to be downloading V0 mp3s ripped from the CD, just so you wouldn't assume it was bad because of the shitty file quality. If you're going to pirate, do it properly, geez.


Spotify? Probably better than pirating, even if you're giving money to "evil corporations". The point is, you're showing that there's demand for an artist, making it more likely for them record and release new stuff. You're not doing that by getting stuff from "alternative sources".