2009 Readers Poll Results: Pt 1
An unprecedented number of votes were counted for this year’s 'M+N' Readers Poll. Today, we reveal your picks for the Best Reissue, Best Comeback and Best New-ish and Live acts of the year. Tomorrow, it’s your top 50 albums of ’09.
Best Reissue
1. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
From Her To Eternity/*The Firstborn Is Dead*/Kicking Against The Pricks/*Your Funeral… My Trial* (Mute Records)
In a year in which he released no new albums, Australia’s Prince of Darkness, the indefatigable Nick Cave, still reigned supreme. He graced the covers of magazines and weekend lift-outs; earned a nomination for a Bad Sex in Fiction Award for second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro; toured the world; and curated Australia’s inaugural ATP. Not even the departure of Bad Seeds co-founder Mick Harvey, could stall his ever-growing empire of evil.
Released through Mute Records in March, these reissues of Cave and The Bad Seeds’ first four albums – 1984's From Her to Eternity, 1985's The Firstborn Is Dead, 1986's Kicking Against the Pricks and 1986's Your Funeral... My Trial – will be followed by 10 more.
2. Screamfeeder
Kitten Licks (Low Transit Industries)
Reviewed here.
3. Beasts of Bourbon
Axeman’s Jazz/*Sour Mash*/Black Milk (Provenance/Inertia)
Reviewed here
4. X
X-Aspirations (Aztec Music)
Reviewed here
5. Lakes
Cloven (RIP Society Records)
Reviewed here
Best Comeback
1. Rowland S Howard
The year may have ended on a sour note for Howard – he cancelled his Homebake appearance due to poor health – but his first album in a decade, Pop Crimes, was an undisputed triumph. Released in October through Liberation Music, it was described by M+N contributor Trevor Block as worthy of its lengthy wait. “Despite the 10-year gap between albums,” he wrote, “this collection is not a return to form. He’s never lost it.” It was capped off by two stellar launch shows at Sydney’s Oxford Arts Factory and The Prince Bandroom in Melbourne, where he lapped up the adulation of new and old fans, despite leaving the stage with a bloodied lip.
2. Mum Smokes
3. Tumbleweed
4. Primitive Calculators
Review of their first show in 30 years here.
5. Underground Lovers
Review of their reformation show here.
Best New-ish Act
1. St Helens
Let’s get this out of the way first: St Helens are not necessarily a “new” act. The Melbourne outfit played their first show in early 2007, but with founding members Paul Williams and Karl Scullin devoting most of their time to Panel of Judges and Kes Band, respectively, they’ve had to be content with life as a studio project. 2009 might well go down as the year St Helens became a band proper (hence the “new-ish” qualifier). They released their acclaimed debut album Heavy Profession in April after a calculated delay – their label Dot Dash didn’t want it to drop on an unsuspecting public – and have since become a formidable live act with the addition of drummer Damian Clarkson and Ian Wadley, the band’s former guitarist who has returned on bass.
2. The Middle East
3. East Brunswick All Girls Choir
4. The Twerps
5. Rat vs Possum
Best Live Act
1. Wagons
“The whole show is permeated with the sense of fun and enjoyment you might associate with the touring circus shows of yore.” This is how M+N contributor Patrick Emery described Wagons’ vaudevillian show at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club on Cup Eve. The band are enjoying a recent surge in popularity thanks to their fourth long-player, The Rise and Fall of Goodtown, which yielded gongs for Best Album and Best Group at last month’s EG Awards. Topping a poll that includes The Drones, The Dirty Three and Eddy Current may be a surprising result, but as frontman Henry Wagons told us in a recent interview, it’s in the live arena where they always bring “The Shit”. “I'll be singing, sweating and bleeding down to a wet pulp whether its a packed Corner Hotel in Melbourne or the last dregs of a buck's night in Coolum,” he said.
2. The Drones
3. The Dirty Three
4. Eddy Current Suppression Ring
5. My Disco
+
TOMORROW: Your top 50 albums of 2009.
[insert band] should have won [insert category] over [insert band].
Royal Headache should have won Best New-ish Act over St. Helens for sure
Very Melbourne, wonder if the album results will be the same.
It's as though someone's uncle who still thinks of himself as hip and down with the alternative music scene voted a couple of thousand times.
Hey, let's put the Middle East on some more lists why don't we?
So, this kinda don't mean much if we don't know how many votes there were.
careful junkiephil, you'll raise the ire of m&n admin with that kind of talk...
sorry, should've mentioned it. there were four.
who won the prize pack?
The people have spoken. Clearly, I am not the people.
I didn't even speak. However, From Her to Eternity is the best thing Cave ever committed to recording.
where are the worst categories? theyre always the best
Wagons for best live act..... People are loosing their fucking minds!
Oh well..... Wow, cool to see East Brunswick All Girls Choir in there. Ace!
How come Nick Cave went from having hair to not having hair so fast?
it was like one minute hair - next hair gone.
I didnt know it could go so unexpectedly?
worst readers poll of 2009 - M&N
Look at the results of this poll.
Clearly, all the voters (all 30 of them) live in the same two streets in Brunswick and North Fitzroy.
I'M IN YR STATS ANALYSIS, FUCKIN' YR CONCLUSIONS.
needs more THE STEELE.
(or just third person generally)
hahaha. i'd have to agree with that. am happy to see st helens up there though.
so far so good, and no real complaints (although Nick Cave just keeps on keeping on doesn't he) but even I just have to point out that if You Am I are not the consistently best freaking live freaking Australian band in Australian history over the last decade plus (and nearly 2 decades) then I cannot spell Wagons... which I just did. Come on people, pay tribute to the kings - YAI = live music to the power of live squared....
GBTFLOU
Timmy Dodgers.
Where are all the fucking women?
f'n women? hmmm... sentence construction can be a dangerous thing. and i gots to say that lisa mitchell, sarah blasko and adalita are all freaking awesome performers but i couldn't call it sexit if the best five included the drones, you am i, the dirty three, eddy current and my disco (okay i added YAI) - there's no sexism there just ''awesome-ism''
but i take your point and i hope tomorrow we see a better balance considering all things and all things considered (i'd name names but i'd be called sexist for singling out talent - but robert f was right, that blasko album is a stone cold killer)...
tdx
Hmmmm. A pretty unexciting result in the main. Nick Cave over X? Oh well. Worth it for Rowland though.
You mean apart from the ones in Screamfeeder, X, Primitive Calculators, Underground Lovers, St Helens, the Twerps, Rat vs Possum and the Drones?
Popular results rarely reflect what is in fact 'the best'.
It's the M+N Logies.
Results should be rephrased, 'most popular', not best.
how predictable. how very melbourne.
kitchensfloor not even charting in the newest section leads me to believe that a) you're all retarded or b) you haven't got around to listening to em/seeing em. i really hope, for australia's sake that it's the latter.
I dunno, alpsofagreeablepronouncements. Have they already had their backlash? Indie rock is so hard to keep up with. They do well and truly rule though. I've not heard a single one of the new act winners, but that means sweet fuck all really, cos I never really go anywhere. I look forward to doing so.
You mean apart from the ones in Screamfeeder, X, Primitive Calculators, Underground Lovers, St Helens, the Twerps, Rat vs Possum and the Drones?
I made a similar argument about the JJJ poll. Nobody cares.
There just aren't as many women as men playing music. This is probably an accurate demographic reflection. Affirmative action is patronising.
Is it? I don't know.
I mean the demographic thing. Not the affirmative action.
Retard!
It was a joke anyway. remember that poll a few years ago about something? Nor do I.
i don't think you could have a backlash against kitchensfloor. it would be like having a backlash against kittens or sex or something else awesome
Haha. Pole.
So you're saying this is the fault of ceiling cat?
kittens are awesome to be sure. but that st helens album is a killer, and i'm a fan of the middle east. the others I know not of yet... i'm wondering why empire of the sun didn't poll here?
oops, i mean pole.
I'm from Melbourne and I reckon that's wack. More Royal Headache.
Most things about music these days make me feel old, but this poll makes me feel young.
No blood drawn in that live list. This is a little biased (so would all the nomintations) because I tend to see mates bands play more often, but
Hospital The Musical, Fourteen Nights At Sea, Bare Arms, Nation Blue Truth From Facts, Justice Yeldham, The Scandal, The (Temperamental) Pocket, Luca Brasi, Black Level Embassy, Surprise Wasp, Gay Paris.
I dunno, as much as I like My Disco, they've become a lot less interesting live as time goes by. Have Dirty Three even played here this year.
Yeah, they played at ATP
King_Rat said 1 day ago:
Where are all the fucking women?
Why do women only rate if they sing? Does jimmy page not rate then?
Wagons rigged it.
Ahhhh joke.
your not joking. stand by your words, coward.

But what happens when I don't stand by the words that it was a joke. Semi hadron collider.
EBAGC shoulda been best comeback. From a potentially disastrous life.
You truly are a genius.
On the other hand I am almost working back at the same job I was a few years ago. Shit's still got a chance of fuckery. High
TOUR DE FORCE
Turbines for speed