congratulations aria best male artist
as for the arias themselves… best not to get me started. i think at one point daniel johns in one of his acceptance speeches made some kind of self-congratulatory statement about how great australian music is right now, about how we are ‘killing it’ or some such. i agree with him, but gee you wouldn’t have known it from watching the arias. i love a lot of australian music right now, and obviously i’m very keen to see it succeed. but the people out there who are making the really great and inspiring music, receive little or no attention from a commercially driven monolith like the arias. so while i guess its great to see “independent” artists so well represented.. i can’t help but be saddened that some more of australia’s truly great music can’t be represented via the arias to such a large audience.
i had to laugh when the point was made during silverchair’s puff piece that they funded the recording of their cd themselves. i don’t doubt this is true, and it probably wasn’t their decision to highlight this particular fact but come on – silverchair as independent self-funded act? please. reserve that particular brand of kudos for the real DIY heroes. (note that i’m not by implication extending this title to myself… i’m one of australia’s fake DIY losers, its a different thing altogether)
i guess me and nick cave can sulk in a corner while the music industry and the majority of music buyers please themselves. excuse me while i get down off my high horse (until next year anyway).
ps spot the difference:
