SLQ Live!: While I was in Brisbane, I went to the little exhibition room in the State Library, where this was printed on one of the walls. It was drawn by a person I briefly went to school with. I sort of regret not suggesting Kitchen's Floor while she was asking for bands on Facebook, but oh well. Interestingly, the friend who was with me had the same thought: how many of these bands will be remembered in three years?

Small town: Kurt Sines, one of the guys on that poster, is now in a band with that kid I thought should have won the high school talent quest I ran in 2011. Good for him. They've already got 800 likes on Facebook.

Kirin J. Callinan: Melbourne loves this Sydney guy! Something about seizures, I don't know. Cool voice though, will have to give the album a few more listens.

Sarah Blasko: Forgot to talk about this last month. Being naked in a music video for a song called "All Of Me" is... naff. I'm also not sure why people think it's brave for a woman to do that. It's practically expected, isn't it?

Bliss N Eso: Speaking of Blasko, I just heard Next Frontier on jjj and thought to myself, is it really sufficient to just take someone's song and rap over it? It's pretty much unaltered, and the fact that the original song is so familiar makes it sound so awkward.

Pitchforkcore update: I took Trouble Will Find Me to Brisbane, listened to it many times, tried to muster up some melancholy, and all I felt was "eh". Yeah, I do think the good reviews are people praying for it to be a grower. On the other hand, I'm still getting some enjoyment out of Vampire Weekend's album. Wonder how Arcade Fire will fare.

Yeezus: Yeah, I don't think this album is as difficult and revolutionary as people have been saying. "Bound 2" was probably the best song I heard on the radio that week, but I think its novelty will wear off quickly.

Pixies: I've managed to avoid them for a while now, but a new song! It's alright, but nobody would care about it if it wasn't the Pixies.

50. Pearl Jam - Better Man

49. Florence + the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
Considering how classic rock these countdowns tend to be, I really didn't expect this.

48. The Strokes - Last Nite

47. The Offspring - Self Esteem

46. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
Oh no, I forgot about this song!

45. Modest Mouse - Float On
I downloaded Good News... and for some reason this song wasn't in the zip, so I didn't hear it for ages.

44. Daft Punk - One More Time

43. John Butler Trio - Betterman

42. Matt Corby - Brother
I don't think this belongs here. I don't think it's a bad song, but there are probably a hundred songs better than it.

41. Coldplay - Yellow
I'm really glad Coldplay exists now. It seems to be the one thing that both pop music and indie rock types can enjoy/tolerate, judging from how the uni music club always ends up singing one of their songs at the end of gatherings.

40. Nine Inch Nails - Closer
My IB45 friend was into romance novels, so I read one with her so we'd have something to talk about. In the book, the heroine would nearly faint every time she heard this song because it reminded her of her ex. And that's how I first heard this great song.

39. Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box
Thumbs up for this song. Ooh, the Spotify playlist updates in real time.

38. The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
Having seen this band at the ARIAs, I can confirm that the singer can goddamn sing.

37. Beastie Boys - Sabotage

36. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Whoa, expected this to be higher. I could live without hearing any version of this song again though, it's good but overplayed to death.

35. Radiohead - Karma Police
Cool. I remember a friend showing me how to play this on guitar. Paranoid Android better be up there somewhere.

34. Ben Folds Five - Brick
Didn't expect this. I guess this is the song that made Ben Folds decide to focus on sappier sort of songs, but I do like it.

33. The Cranberries - Zombie
The chord progression sounds a bit like Coldplay's "The Scientist", doesn't it? But this came first. People just love songs that go "eh eh eh oh". It's pretty fun to sing to.

32. Tool - Stinkfist
Oh, so this is Tool. Interesting. Another album atarred on Spotify for later listening.

31. Massive Attack - Teardrop
Here's another song I considered voting for. Thank you, House MD.

30. RHCP - Californication
Only listened to this album because of how much I heard about its terrible mastering. It really was exhausting to listen to. This song is okay/meh, though I'd probably hate it if I were born a bit earlier.

29. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Ridiculously catchy guitar riff.

28. RHCP - Scar Tissue
See above RHCP words. Oh yeah, I remember living in Brisbane and being on a train full of crazy excited people going to their concert. Ah, Ipswich line.

27. The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist
Finally, another song I voted for! It would have been embarrassing for everyone if the only one I got right(!?) was Lana Del Rey.

26. System Of A Down - Chop Suey
I'm not at all familiar with this.

25. Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings
Didn't vote for this song, but happy it's here.

24. Augie March - One Crowded Hour
Hooray, another vote in. Probably the only #1 I really like. Awesome lyrics.

23. Muse - Knights of Cydonia
This song is hilarious. I wouldn't say that I like Muse ironically, but I don't really think they're great either. Their songs are just really fun to sing to and play on Guitar Hero. Just sitting around quietly listening to them? Nah.

22. Blur - Song 2
Woo hoo. (But I like the Parklife stuff more...)

21. Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
Hmm, I probably should have voted for this.

20. The Living End - Prisoner Of Society
Didn't expect this so high. I remember the teachers at my high school singing this at the graduation of the cohort above ours. For my year, they did Green Day, and it was nowhere near as fun.

19. Blink-182 - Dammit
I don't really like this band. I was never into pop punk or emo.

18. Outkast - Hey Ya
What!? Thought it'd be top 10. This is a nice break from all of those rock songs.

17. Silverchair - Tomorrow
*shrug* I thought this was supposed to be a youth radio station.

16. Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Can't be surprised, considering how popular that Birdy cover became. I feel like the only person who doesn't think Justin Vernon's voice is beautiful, but his songs still manage to be pretty.

15. The Prodigy - Breathe
Heard this a lot but didn't what it was called.

14. Mumford & Sons - Little Lion Man
The best thing about this band is how people get entertainingly angry about them. I feel the same way about this as Angus & Julia Stone: hilarious in hindsight. (This really does not belong here though.)

13. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Should be higher, but whatever. Gosh, what's going to be in the top ten then?

12. Gotye - Hearts A Mess
Surprising. I think I like this a bit more than STIUTK, probably because it's a lot less overplayed.

11. QOTSA - No One Knows
Wasn't really paying attention because I was eating, but I heard a nice guitar bit.

10. Powderfinger - My Happiness
Nostalgia votes, I guess. Haha, someone on Spotify just added it to their terrible early 2000s nostalgia playlist ("listen @ own risk").

9. Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
Thank you to my vocal group for showing me the intricacies of this song, as well as giving it some future sentimental value. I also remember it playing at my Yr 12 formal.

8. Powderfinger - These Days
I don't know this one, so no nostalgia for me. Bernard Fanning seems nice enough though.

7. The Killers - Mr Brightside
I actually think this song has the potential to grow on me a little more.

6. Foo Fighters - Everlong
I've... actually never heard this song. At least, I don't remember it

5. The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony
Here's another one of my votes. Thank God I like something that a lot of other people like. It's not actually one of my top 20 songs from the last two decades, but I wanted to vote for things that had a chance.

4. Hilltop Hoods - The Nosebleed Section
Probably the best of Australian hip hop, but I don't think that's saying much. The little explanation about the sample was interesting though.

3. Jeff Buckley - Last Goodbye
That's some impressive falsetto. Seven Nation Army and Wonderwall next?

2. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army
Yep. Some kid at school suggested this to be our school song, with the seven nations representing the six IB groups and the hub. The guitar riff is basically this whole song.

1. Oasis - Wonderwall
I don't like Oasis. I only have to know this song for things like music club singalongs. That kind of thing is probably why so many people voted for it.

The Drones at Sydney Opera House: Yeah, it wasn't the best venue for them. It's really weird to watch these guys thrashing about on the stage, while the middle-aged guy next to you calmly sips his wine. I still enjoyed it though. Really, really like "Why Write A Letter That You'll Never Send" and was very happy that they finished with it. A bit random, maybe, but I also liked the choice of pre-concert music.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: I have decided that I don't like the album. (4/10) I don't like it when people call things pretentious, but that's what I'm inclined to think of this band. 41 Strings, Stop The Virgens? Meh.

Charli XCX: True Romance is pretty decent. I like "Black Roses". It seems like the kind of thing I'll tire of quickly though.

Daft Punk: Spotify Stalkee keeps playing "Get Lucky", so I've been listening to it as well. Got tired of it last week though. It's okay. Not particularly exciting.

Lana Del Rey: "Young and Beautiful" is a bit of a step up from the Paradise tracks. I just wish they'd get someone to write better lyrics for her.

Ben Salter: Not new music, but I just bought his 2011 album, The Cat. I found this video ages and ages ago, and recently rediscovered it through a railfan forum. Good ol' Ipswich line. The warm, fuzzy nostalgia feeling was enough for me to cough up for the CD. I love it. (8/10)

Spotify: I hate how it knows when I turn the volume down during the ads and stops it. Also, remember that showtunes and Minaj guy that was attempting to convert himself into a hipster? He's now listening to Debussy. I kind of want to follow him, but the new Spotify follow system would make it awkward.

Glee club: A first year econ student scraped together some audition rejects (including me) to form a vocal group. So far, he's doing a better job than my high school music teacher.

Dirty Projectors
I bought the tickets ages before and I had no idea why, since I didn't even like them much. I didn't even know that they had a whole bunch of albums before Bitte Orca.

The first support act was awful. They started promisingly enough, with a guy playing a bass clarinet, before a girl walked on and started singing some terribly generic piano pop. Fortunately the second was a nice indie-classical group that played Nico Muhly and St. Vincent, though by that point a lot of people had gone outside to buy drinks.

I'd read some criticism where people were saying that the male singer was off-key and "Using women as back-up singers is sexist!" but it really didn't come off that way to me. Longstreth is a better singer than most other wimpy indie frontmen I've seen, and there were plenty of female-lead songs. The bassist was not a woman for once!

I walked away thinking, "Hey, that was great!" while people around me were like "That was weird, where was the melody?" like a lot of other concerts I go to, and I know that a lot of them are just going to these things to pretend to be smart.

Also, I saw a guy wearing Crocs.

David Byrne & St. Vincent

I appreciated the songs from St. Vincent's 2nd album, which I thought was better than her new one. 

I didn't expect any Talking Heads because musicians are often like, "This is the new me, stop making me play old hits". And that's fine, but everyone leapt out of their seats at "Burning Down The House" and they finished with "Road To Nowhere". Unsurprising, since the audience looked pretty middle-aged.

Um, I'm not sure where I was going with that. It's been more than a month, so I don't remember much. However, I will always remember that old guy sitting and reading his phone while everyone was jumping and dancing to "Burning Down The House". But I won't complain anymore about other concertgoers...

Compare with last year's chart here. Won't bother talking about what I talked about there.

Didn't see this on television, because I was actually at the damn thing. I don't know anybody who watched it (except my parents, but their "watched TV" is really more "slept on couch"). My best guess at what was televised comes from this Pedestrian article.

Sydney Opera House, 2:45PM

A lady is sitting across from me. Says she's from Melbourne. She's chatting with a friend who is apparently here for study, and funding it hard to "accept it as music." Speech On Nothing is running overtime so they're handing out programs. I wander over to the CD stand and buy Music For Airports.

When I was in high school, I heard some boys in a band say about the music teacher, "His music taste must kick all of our asses!" I laughed to myself, because at that moment, he unfortunately decided to play Angus & Julia Stone over the speakers.

Last week, I was waylaid at Central Station by some girls selling stuff for Pink Ribbon Day. One complimented me on my Regina Spektor shirt, and the other (who was in my stats class) told her that I had great taste in music. Then a guy in my chem lab congratulated me for listening to Amanda Palmer. Cool?

What do people really mean when they say "good taste"? I've come to see it as just another way of saying that their taste is similar to yours. It's not often that you say another person has better taste, because we all like to think that we're the best, right?

My ideal, I suppose, is someone who listens to as many different things as they can. A person like that could have a conversation with almost anybody, and that's useful.

I was recommended this song. Some people say it's a crappy pop song, probably because it got big enough for this and this to happen. One possible interpretation of the song is that it's about drugs. There is definitely a sinister undertone to it, like the lyrics, "you only reap just what you sow", but then a decent amount of people seem to think it's a simple love song, so I don't know. The ambiguity is my favourite thing about it. The bizarre chord progression of the verse is something too.

I haven't focused my energies into liking anything since that song, actually. It's as if I don't like anything unless I'm ordered to, and nobody with the authority has rec'd me recently. I tried making a schedule of critically acclaimed shit to listen to. You'd think the internet hivemind would be a good enough authority, but then I realized that I didn't have anybody to impress.

Nobody to impress? All right, I'm going to listen to Lana Del Rey demos on Tumblr while RainyMood.mp3 plays on VLC.

But even that, I like because of someone else. 

EDIT: I'm updating this as the situation changes. It's going to turn into a fun way to discover new music.

I know it's really stupid, but it's annoying to see posts on Facebook from distant acquaintances talking about something I like. Part of it is because I'm bitter about having no friends who like what I like. Another thing is that it's usually some vapid post like "[critically acclaimed album/artist] is awesome!" or some random lyrics, and then it gets a whole lot of likes and circlejerk comments. Karma whoring.

Well, screw that. I'm going to find alternatives that my news feed doesn't mention.

There's another indie-folk band from my high school! I'll try to be kind.

Backstory: I (kind of) know one person from the band. I curated the school's talent quest last year and the guitarist was in it. I thought he should've won, and the teacher judges agreed, but everybody voted for the popular kids.

At over six minutes, this single is on the long side for a pop song, but it builds up and changes throughout. My brain does not shout band names at me while I listen to it, instead, it uncertainly mumbles genre descriptions like "dream pop". The song could do with more distinctive vocals too, I guess, but at least there are no repetitive "ooh"s.

I could go on and list all the things that this song does that Homebrand #1 doesn't, but that isn't nice, so I'll just say that I really like the bridge and give it a score. 6/10.

After killing off the state literary awards, cutting pay for ambulance officers, sacking a whole lot of people, waging war against gays, and planning to cut down trees,  Queensland premier Campbell Newman has now axed two music programs, making him relevant to this blog.

Interestingly enough, they've chosen to keep Creative Generation. Of course, keep the flashy thing that makes you look like you support the arts. As one commenter points out, "Having been to one it has more lights and pyrotechnics than a Las Vegas casino act and the sound track from a bad 80's movie." Having been to two myself, I'd say that description is accurate. However, should they cut that too, I've got my personal story ready to present!

Everything I know about music today is an indirect result of taking part in CGEN 2009. 

I don't play an instrument, not really. I took piano lessons, but I wasn't interested, and as a result didn't learn much from them. In fact, I had no interest in music whatsoever as a child. I didn't like classical, pop, or even Disney movies that had singing in them. I went to this primary school, and it didn't do me any good. I went to another school known for its music program and that didn't do much either. So how did this cheesy show with terrible music help me see the light?

I'll tell you if/when they kill it.

Not a review. 

Almost everybody else there was an old white person. The attendant had to look long and hard at my ticket to make sure I wasn't some teen up to no good. Apart from the old people, there were some fathers and their young children, and maybe a few Asian families. Didn't see any hipsters. I think they're only into minimalism and Mahler.

A band of kids from my high school released their first single the other day. I downloaded it and listened to it a few times.

Remember the indie-folk wave, with Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, etc.? Then there was the crappy mainstream derivative, Mumford & Sons, which sort of helped Australian acts like Boy & Bear and Matt Corby to get big. So many dull pop songs decorated with a folksy wrapping.

Judging from the popularity of Japandroids, Bleeding Knees Club, DZ Deathrays, etc. I think we've moved on to garage/punk. The nice thing about this is that it's harder to make an adult-contemporary punk.

Oh right, that song. It's a softer Mumford & Sons meets Matt Corby's "ooh ooh ooh"s. Late to the party.  4/10.

EDIT: Hey, it's in the top 100 on Unearthed. I panned it before it was cool.

Should I audition for a choir?

This university is similar to my high school in several ways, the most important being: everybody is Asian, everybody does science, and the music department is kind of puny and nobody seems to care for it. There is an orchestra, but oddly enough there doesn't seem to be a choir. However, there is a music club that supposedly runs a vocal group.

Last semester, only eight people turned up for the audition (as far as I know) out of the eighty-something that signed up. My friend signed up, but couldn't make it to the audition. The club said they'd set another date, but she never heard back from them. I guess they gave up from lack of interest, because I didn't hear anything either. Friend wants to try auditioning again this semester. I'm not so sure.

It all reminded me of that debacle last year. (Long, personal story.) It almost single-handedly ruined my senior year. I don't want even the slightest possibility of putting up with that kind of thing again. Negative associations, you know?

But another part of me thinks I should try, because I might be able to replace the bad associations with better ones. After all, who the hell goes through life with a hatred of choral music? Christmas is already irritating enough for me.

Three straight nights of shows has really screwed my sleeping pattern. I woke up at about 3PM today. Then again, a guy said "g'morning" to me as I was walking home at 7PM. So I'm not alone.

Here comes the album release cycle! Ah, those lame things I used to listen to in 2009 because I didn't know any better. Those people are releasing new albums now.

Or some ideas that I will elaborate on at a later date.

I listened to the lab supervisor chat animatedly with a girl in a Rollins Band shirt about the time he'd seen them live. I knew that, regardless of what kind of shirt I was wearing, nobody would start a conversation with me about anything like that.

I closed the door and fell onto my bed. I was exhausted. Not from walking halfway across the CBD, not from sitting for half an hour on the bus, but from practically leaping out of my skin every time my phone buzzed. I knew I'd have as much luck getting a reply from JS Bach, but still.

It would be inaccurate to say that I want to go home. I'm not sure where that is any more. I just don't think I enjoy living next to a piano teacher's studio. Of course, there's the noise, but there's also those poor kids who just don't want to be there. I don't know why their parents insist on it. It certainly didn't do me any good.

I was honestly relieved to learn that everybody knew, but I'll say it here too:

I want nothing more than to be tracing the triangles and lines of annotations, pencilled on a Lovelock score in quintuple time, while basking in the artificial light of a Monday afternoon.

If Hype Machine is still going with their Zeitgeist thing, then it's not too late for me to waffle about my ten most-played artists of 2011.