Taylor Swift rises to the surface

You might think that Taylor Swift fans registering votes for Shake It Off as best song of 2014 in Triple J's end of year poll as 'sabotage'.

Others may think it's simply a correction.

Triple J killing Australian music, or possibly reflecting moribund music scene

There's a battle going on in Australia between Triple J, the "youth" radio station, and some other parts of the media.

It started last week when The Age "investigated" the station:

Triple J is [...] the most supportive of emerging Australian artists, with an average weekly reach of 1.8 million listeners across the country.

It's popular and supports emerging artists. That's a good thing, right?

Hang on a moment, though. The Age is published by a commercial media organisation, Fairfax. Triple J is part of the public broadcaster ABC. It is scientifically impossible for a commercial media organisation to look at a public broadcaster and report that things are going well.

For The Age, then, Triple J has a 'sound'. New bands form, and either through a shrewd desire to please the station, or else from having absorbed this sound growing up, the bands all mould to fit that sound.

Meanwhile, because it's good at what it does, the station's popularity is growing, and thus its taste becomes the dominant taste in the marketplace:

The Basics’ Kris Schroeder says: ‘‘Basically if you put it in a metaphor of the stockmarket, Triple J is the insider that says ‘Buy these shares’ and everybody rushes to buy them. There’s stuff that just falls by the wayside consequentially. It’s about alternatives and there aren’t many alternatives in this business because most people prefer to be followers rather than leaders.

‘‘It’s just a shame that the industry is so obsessed with the decisions that a couple of people [at Triple J] make,’’ he says.

‘‘Maybe if the industry wasn’t so f---ing lazy and so narrow-minded ... the industry itself needs a shake-up.’’

Oddly, although The Age ends on that suggestion that the problem is that music is lazy, the headline still focuses on the idea that the problem is the station, not the culture in which it operates.

In its fightback, Triple J is quick to blame the artists:

Station Manager Chris[Station Manager Chris] “We’d much prefer bands to go out and find their own style. There are so many exciting new artists out there at the moment, doing their own thing and making something quite unique, it’s really exciting. We’re never looking for one particular sound, we’re looking for songs that stand out and resonate with our audience. Basically we’re looking for good music, as shown by the range of artists and styles currently played on triple j.”

Yes, that's a radio station doing the 'we just play what we play and if anyone else likes it it's a bonus' line.

It's hard to know where the truth sits, although experience suggests it will probably be closer to the side that isn't a massive media conglomerate.

Triple J is growing an audience in a competitive market, and while that could purely be down to the muscle of a national broadcaster, it seems unlikely that if the audience didn't want the bands they'd turn up in such large numbers. And "the state broadcaster is supporting dozens and dozens of new artists" is an odd complaint.

Even if Triple J closed tomorrow, there'd still be some dominant force where the audience would gather. Surely?

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Triple J

Everett True, over on Collapse Board isn't impressed that Triple J can only find three women to sit in the best Australian albums chart, but have found a competition for the ladies to run on the side:

Female musicians are represented (at number 30) by Sarah Blasko and – much, much lower down the list – by Kylie Minogue and Sia. And that – the odd band-member aside – is it. Three female acts in a 100.

Simultaneously, they’re asking listeners and the general public to vote for their favourite Hottest Australian Musicians Of All Time. Female, natch.

It’s beyond parody, really.

You can trust the music industry

All those guys in the record labels - they're pretty straight kinda guys. You can trust them.

Up to a point. The Australian RIAA client has got an only-slightly-sinister-sounding Music Industry Piracy Investigations unit which has produced a video for kids to teach them about copying being bad. It turns out, though, that they got some musicians to take part by lying to them:

Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall, also a radio presenter at Triple J, told the Herald he was furious at being "lumped in with this witch hunt" and that he had been "completely taken out of context and defamed" by the Australian music industry, which funded the video.

He said he was told the 10-minute film, which is being distributed for free to all high schools in Australia, was about trying to survive as an Australian musician and no one mentioned the video would be used as part of an anti-piracy campaign.

The MIPI Unit denies that anyone was duped:

Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), which partly coordinated the film and is pushing for it to be included in school units related to copyright and file sharing, said all of the feedback she had received so far from other artists and their managers had been positive.

She questioned whether McDougall had actually watched the film and said only 1-2 minutes of it discussed the issue of downloading and how it impacted musicians.

- although it seem strange that a Piracy unit would be making a film which wasn't actually about piracy, and push for it to appear in schools when teaching about copyright if it wasn't about copyright. We love the way they're saying "well, nobody else complained" as if that somehow disproves McDougall's complaint.trip