I
love music. I love Australian Music. I think that Australia’s electronic music
scene has produced the most creative and influential artists in that field in
the world over the past decade. So I become aggrieved when politics and
financial interests obscure, misrepresent, embarrass or hinder the brilliance
of Australian musicians. The ARIA Awards 2013 was the most pointed example of
this phenomenon I’ve ever seen.
As
the farce became increasingly apparent during the show, winning musicians
themselves increasingly used their acceptance speeches to wink at true music
fans about what was going on.
“We’re
gonna melt this down to liquid silver to make some shoes!” – Tame Impala (Album
of the Year).
“Hopefully
it opens the floodgates for producers around Oz and people with bad voices in
general.” – Flume (Male Artist of the Year).
“We just need to pick up
our game.” – Jessica Mauboy (Female Artist of the Year).
“[Thank you to] all the
people who eat soft cheese... all the people who do the stuff that isn’t
creative...” – Tame Impala (Band of the Year).
Richard Wilkins’ no doubt
inadvertently brilliant comment on the Australian Record Industry Association Awards was to emcee the recognition
of Mandawuy Yunupingu (Yothu Yindi) and ChrissyAmphlett’s (The Divinyls) deaths in
bed-hair while appearing to be trying to shake off last night’s Stilnox.
The rest of the show could be
laughed off, but to spit on the graves of two Australian music and political
legends was unforgiveable. Mandawuy Yunupingu was afforded no visual or auditory
tribute besides a shot of an album cover (partly because of cultural reasons;
some Indigenous Australians find some kinds of visual and auditory representations
of dead people offensive and/or traumatising). ARIA’s budget for the tribute to
Chrissy Amphlett apparently didn’t extend beyond paying for the licensing
involved in showing photographs of her, footage from only one performance –
which seemed to be from a previous ARIA Awards night – and playing the audio
from one song (“Pleasure and Pain”). The Jezables’ touching performance thereof
was in contrast to the ARIAs’ contempt.
Besides this high crime, the mix
of deserved and undeserved nominations and winners pales to misdemeanour. Some
of the injustices are a matter of taste, but to argue about others is to lose
the ear of any credible music lover.
Two stand-out disgraces were the
lack of recognition for all the amazing music videos made for/by Australian
musicians last year in that category’s nominations (there could be issues about
the nationality of directors but this is just illustrative of the fact that
major Australian electronic artists are virtually universally signed to
international labels due to the imbalance between the budgets/ears of
Australian music record companies and Australian electronic artists) and the
winner of International Artist of the Year (One Direction [Sony], who beat the
following nominees: Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran and even Pink). Not that
international artists would care about, or even be aware about, their ARIA
nominations.
A minor complaint should be made
about the misnaming of the electronic music category: “Dance Act of the Year”.
Argument with actual nominees and winners in that category are problematic because
of Australia’s embarrassment of riches therein, but I could rattle off at least
ten other artists who deserved more recognition.
It was nice that Jessica Mauboy
won Female Artist of the Year, but she didn’t release anything of substance in
2013 and her manager should be fired, shot, and then fired again for wasting
extreme talent on drossly produced recordings. We’re talking about the woman
who single-handedly elevated the soundtrack to “The Sapphires” to
almost-classic status.
Last but not least, the ARIA
Awards’ budgetary issues manifested themselves in the whole debacle being
enacted on a tiny stage backed by a flat-screen that could fit in your bedroom,
and lighting and sound-engineering being left to people probably battling away
bravely on internships. Even Alicia Keyes (and Lorde) managed to sound
second-rate. The show was broadcast on Channel Nine’s second channel. There
weren’t even bottles of wine on tables to ease the embarrassment for all
attending.
So what does this tell us about
the politics and economics of the Australian music industry as 2014 begins?
What does this tell us about people, artists and corporations who bother to pay
their ARIA membership fees anymore?
Draw your own conclusions; anyone
that bothered to read about this would have the intelligence or inside
knowledge to do it themselves and I don’t have time to run around striking out
Statements of Claim for defamation actions anymore.
As an aside, it was nice of Nick
Cave to do someone involved a favour by bothering to pre-record some acceptance
speeches and lend the sham some credibility.
But music lovers can rejoice in
the fact that the internet, legal and illegal downloading, have saved the vital
art of pop music from the avarice, neglect, power-hunger and status-seeking of
establishment people who obviously have no interest in beauty for beauty’s
sake. The next chapter in the history of Australian music has now begun.
