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.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 
What is it? Indie rock, strings, organ
How'd I find it? Video of them performing in an elevator
The appeal of Arcade Fire is the overblown melodrama, but this is just a bit too much. Church organ and complaining about religion? No wonder this is their least popular album. I only ever listen to Black Wave/Bad Vibrations, The Well And The Lighthouse, and My Body Is A Cage. That last one ought to be a future classic.

Darren Hanlon - Fingertips and Mountaintops
What is it? Male singer-songwriter, acoustic
How'd I find it? Probably in some list of Australian musicians
Does this count as twee? That's what it makes me think of. I don't have a problem with that, though some people find it annoying. Is that why there isn't much talk about this album? Well, that's a shame, because it's lovely. Lyrics are good enough that I want to grab a physical copy for the liner notes, but I can't find it anywhere.

Catcall - The Warmest Place
What is it? Female vocalist, pop
How'd I find it? Mess+Noise
I remember when it was big deal that Pitchfork gave this a negative review. I'm generally ok with Pitchfork, though I do think sometimes they give good scores to mediocre albums by bands that they've hyped for a long time, and bad scores to things they overlooked. I'd have given this at least a 6. The World Is Ours is fantastic.

cosMo@暴走P - 初音ミクの消失
What is it? Vocaloid, I don't even know
How'd I find it? Brisbane Square Library
Not sure if this album is 100% Vocaloid, but if it is, it's extremely impressive. I'm sure there's a genre tag for this kind of thing, but I know nothing about electronic. Happy hardcore, maybe? There are a few songs that are stupidly fast and cheery. This is one of those albums that I want to make friends listen to just to see their reaction.

Augie March - Strange Bird
What is it? folk, rock
How'd I find it? The ubiquity of One Crowded Hour
Shit, this album is over ten years old. Lots of albums I'm listening to are, but this one just sounds fresh and not dated. Possibly because the mainstream loves folk music at the moment. Come back and ask me about this album in a month's time; I still don't know it well enough to have a strong opinion. I currently like This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers and Addle Brains.

Trends: Seems that the likes of Grimes has ushered in an age of female vocalist indie electronic pop. Like CHVRCHES, AlunaGeorge, and Phebe Starr, who was really boring when she was on Unearthed. They just wrapped that mess up with some trendy production.

Foxygen: Listened to the new album while going through BNMs and was shocked by how bad it was. Thank God for this review. Especially that 2nd paragraph!

The Drones: I wasn't going to freak over new music this year, but I heard The Drones on the radio and thought, "Wow, this is a really weird." It's a good album. I particularly like the last two tracks.

Spotify: Oh God, they changed it so you can see who people are following/who's following you. On the plus side, I can now unfollow that girl who listens exclusively to Glee covers.

Paul Kelly/Neil Finn: Watching the livestream was probably better than actually being there. It was alright, though I'm not really into Crowded House (gasp). I dunno, they were like one of those name-drop bands in high school, like Beatles or Pink Floyd. Felt a bit emotional during How To Make Gravy.

Hey, you know what I'd like to hear in new Australian music? Specific references to local stuff (like catching the 470 to Circular Quay) and accents that aren't pointlessly weird and definitely not Australian (Lisa Mitchell, Josh Thomas).

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

San Cisco: Debut album is finally here! I'm hearing a lot of Vampire Weekend, maybe some MGMT, and Arctic Monkeys. It's mediocre and I doubt that I'll listen to it again.

Birds Of Tokyo: Their latest song  whoops, it's Something for Kate with Miracle Cure ripping off Arcade Fire's 'Rebellion' several months after Delta Goodrem did. (Though the BoT is kind of similar too?)

Rebecca Black: New song is surprisingly not terrible. It's not good but it's probably not any worse than a lot of generic female singer-songwriter stuff. Good for her.

Ke$ha: It's cool to like her now? Well, okay, I listened to her demos before she even released her first album. She's not completely devoid of value, but I wouldn't say she was good. 

Pitchfork: Readers Poll, yay. Not that I'm going to vote, since I don't give a crap about album covers or musician twitters. We all know that Album of the Year is gonna be Kendrick Lamar or Frank Ocean, right?

Triple J: Hottest 100, on the other hand, I will participate in, because it comes with a handy guide of what to vote for! According to last.fm, my favourite 2012 songs were Oblivion, Satellites, and Gun Has No Trigger.

Pixies: Listened to Doolittle while on a road trip. It brought me no joy. I don't think I want friends who listen to the same stuff anymore if this is the aftermath. Maybe friends who hate the same stuff?

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!

The next time I get a lab placement, I'm going to TMS my brain until it fixes my musical preferences.

Clickety click. I guess Pitchfork got tired of people complaining that they don't provide opportunities for reader interaction, etc.

I'm looking through other lists, and I bet that a lot of reviews are going to get changed as a result of this poll. People seem to love Transatlanticism, which got a joke review! Lots of Dark Was The Night, which I personally didn't think was that good, but okay.

The homogeneity is a little disheartening. My list seems to be missing a lot of things that everybody else is including, e.g. Animal Collective, Spiritualized, The Microphones, and a few other things that got 10.0s, but I haven't heard them yet. Heck, I'm somewhat ashamed that I know which albums got the perfect score.

While making my list, I realized that a disproportionate amount of stuff I like is from before my time. Some people think it's cooler to like old music, but I feel that I should like things that are coming out now, just so I can later say, "Yeah, I totally remember when that came out." Isn't that even cooler than liking something that everyone has liked for ages? You have to think about the long term!

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.