Some traditions just don’t get the respect they deserve. For the past couple of decades, the announcement of the Aria nominations were greeted by people pretending to celebrate Australian music. Mainstream radio stations would swiftly add some nominated songs to their playlists and insist they’d singlehandedly discovered them. Magazines would do features on how we should either Meet the New Breed (young new acts got nominations) or Hail the Old Guard (mainly established acts). People would have arguments about the representation of women in Australian rock, discuss whether Triple J used to be better (spoiler: like everything else in Australian music, it did) and, most of all, rant about how Aria was obviously out of touch.
These days, however, the Arias no longer provoke quite such reaction. The ceremony is no longer a key event on the Channel 10 schedule – this year it will be screened on digital station GO! On December 1 – and record companies no longer spend the sort of advertising dollars that make magazines keen to invent stories about the renaissance of Australian music. Commercial radio, meanwhile, seems perfectly content to assume that new local talent is developed entirely by The Voice.
This month we had the Air awards – or, to give them their full name, the Carlton Dry Independent Music awards – the alternative Arias where the argument about what constitutes “independent” in a world where a good advertising sync is more valuable than a major record label deal grows ever more heated.
The big winner was Flume, nom de rock of Sydney bedroom electronica producer Harley Streten, who won three of his five nominations. That was hardly a shock: Flume scored four places in this year’s Hottest 100 on Triple J and his self-titled album topped the Aria charts and has already gone platinum.
Equally unsurprising is that Flume is the most nominated artist in this year’s Aria awards. He’s up for eight categories, including album of the year, best male artist and breakthrough artist: Release. If you’re betting on a win, Flume for album of the year seems like a reasonable wager – although it's likely he'll take male artist and breakthrough as well.
Close behind are Perth collective Tame Impala, in the running for album of the year with Lonerism – which I'd argue they certainly deserve – as well as best group. Despite their many nominations, they’re probably dark horses in just about every category.
Fellow Perthians Birds of Tokyo pretty much have best rock album sewn up for March Fires and are also in the running for best group and album of the year. They’re tied with the most nominated “heritage act”: Aria hall of famer Nick Cave has taken six nods for last year’s Bad Seeds album Push the Sky Away, which is also up for album of the year, and will almost certainly win in the frustratingly difficult-to-define adult contemporary abum category.
The field is far more open in best female artist without a clean-sweeping Delta, Missy or Kylie to take out the field. Sarah Blasko seems like a solid bet though, although Missy Higgins has also been nominated in the category. It's probably not Samantha Jade's year but then neither is 2014 likely to be, since that’s when Lorde’s going to take out every category there is – assuming, of course, that she gets the honorary Australian title that we assign to New Zealanders when they break big internationally. Isn't that right, Kimbra? Wouldn't you say, Ladyhawke?
Other safe-ish bets are Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson for best country album, Guy Sebastian for best pop album, the Cat Empire for best blues and roots and Bliss n Eso for best urban – in genre categories, name recognition is as important as the quality of work.
How does the 2013 Aria list compare with previous years? A couple of heavily nominated newcomers are set to dominate their categories, a few recognisable names who should have won big last year (good luck with the best rock album nomination, Rubens), and some familiar names you’ve missed for a while (David Bridie, congrats on the best original soundtrack nod).
Plus, of course, some weird omissions worth arguing over, like the comparative lack of nominations for the Drones this year despite I See Seaweed being amazing. And a reminder that the last year’s seen some amazingly Australian good music. So: much like every other year, really.
