Monday, March 05, 2007

AMP Week

It's Australian Music Prize announcement week this week. Memory destroyed by drugs and alcohol? Here's the shortlist:

Augie March - Moo, You Bloody Choir
Bob Evans - Suburban Songbook
Gotye - Like Drawing Blood
Howling Bells - Howling Bells
Jackie Marshall - Fight 'n' Flight
Lisa Gerrard - The Silver Tree
Sarah Blasko - What the Sea Wants, The Sea Will Have
The Drones - Gala Mill
The Grates - Gravity Won't Get You High

What's gonna happen? Well, today they're announcing the winner of the "Myspace Public Vote", a pretty crappy concept where you "vote" by myspace-adding a special page for the bands you like. Nothing to stop you voting for all the bands, of course. Seems like this was added partly for reality-TV led democracy's sake, but mostly because myspace are a sponsor of the prize.

Luckily, it's extremely transparent, so here are the votes, since voting closed yesterday:

Augie March - 80
Bob Evans - 225
Gotye - 291
Howling Bells - 110
Jackie Marshall - 100
Lisa Gerrard - 20
Sarah Blasko - 105
The Drones - 63
The Grates - 158

SCOOP!



Gotye wins the AMP Public Vote!

Hmmm, turns out it includes the whole long list of 25. Thanks to someone smarter than me for pointing it out. So add in:

Tobias Cummings - 22
Amanda Handel/GL Seiler - 42
Black Cab - 15
You Am I - 98
Brendan Gallagher - 17
Dane Tucquet - 8
Dappled Cities Fly - 91
Fourth Floor Collapse - 61
Gerling - 118
Princess One Point Five - 16
Sodastream - 18
Something for Kate - 54
Tim Steward - 161
The Knives of Neptune - 78
True Live - 41

And also:

SCOOP! (again)



The winner of the AMP Public Vote is Hilltop Hoods with 582 votes!

That's pretty amazing, winning by almost 300 votes clear over Gotye. Not surprising really, the votes seem to go roughly in order of JJJ airplay, though the Augies did worse than I would have expected. Not enough fans in the myspace set, I suppose. Tim Steward did very well to be outright fourth - my bet is he had a bit of a campaign going on.

Pretty tiny totals across the board, though, about 2600 votes all up, of which the Hoods got 23%. The shortlist of nine got 45% between them. And look at great artists like Sodastream, Lisa Gerrard, Brendan Gallagher and Black Cab, all with less than twenty votes.

Still, now we don't need to bother attending today's press conference.

What else?

Well, there's a new award announced as part of the AMP. The Red Bull Award will "recognise outstanding potential" - it's a $15,000 prize which seems to mostly be in-kind support: studio time, video clips and stuff. Presumably includes a few slabs of the sponsor's product as well.

Who's gonna take this? Won't be The Augies or The Drones or Blasko or definitely Gerrard, they're all too old. Bob Evans is probably out as well cause Mitchell's been around for ages. That leaves Gotye, Howling Bells, Jackie Marshall and The Grates. Given that The Grates and Howling Bells would barely get change out of 15 grand, with their bigger labels and international touring, it'll be out of Gotye and Marshall.

If Gotye doesn't win the full prize, he'll get this. But Jackie Marshall would be a worthy recipient as well; fifteen grand would be great for her.

And for the full, $25,000 cash Australian Music Prize?

I can't see Gotye getting it. A little too quirky and the album has a couple of flat spots. Marshall and Bob Evans just aren't good enough. Gerrard's music will be too unconventional to get consensus votes. Howling Bells and The Grates are too hip and kid-centric. And The Drones won't win again because that'd make the prize look a tad silly.

Augie March to take to Australian Music Prize, capping off a good year.

The official announcement is Wednesday but remember - you read it here first!

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