Dammit Zammit: 2011 in review

14 December 2011

by Adam Zammit

An end of year wrap, like the KFC equivalent, is often more full of fat and shit you don’t need than promised.

I looked back over this year expecting to turn up some revolutionary moment signalling the year that everything changed, the year that digital finally showed all of its teeth, the year reality TV stopped being the single biggest A&R engine in the world, the year subscription music services finally cracked the all-you-can-eat-without-rotting- your-revenue-teeth-model, the year street press got overtaken by web, the year Denis Handlin didn’t add more acronyms to his title, the year AJ Maddah didn’t add more festivals to an already crowded market, the year Powderfinger didn’t release something, the year ticket prices didn’t increase, the year promoters stopped adding the greedy second show, the year digital killed the radio star, the year an after-party actually had the star present, the year Smirnoff didn’t cost $10 a can at festivals, the year anonymity on forums became outlawed, the year 1927 finally got inducted into the Hall of Fame, the year music conferences created new subject matters, the year music legends stopped dying at 27, the year Potbelleez’ Don’t Hold Back stopped sound tracking my Goddamn life, the year the music industry declared a war on drugs...quality.

But none of that happened, so what did?

Well, the guy who stole the music industry from the music industry died...but that was nothing to cheer about cause apparently he was a genius for doing so. The living legend girl singer who everyone expected to die from alcohol....died from alcohol,at the age of 27.

We had two more new or revamped talent shows to help find even more half talented stars who were judged by the few truly talented stars the previous crop of talent shows found amongst the other half talented stars several years ago

Short fat cute unsigned girls doing covers on You Tube got more plays than major signed short fat cute girls. But the majors quickly signed them too

A short fat major radio jock who also judged the half-talented stars on the revamped talent quests shows called a journalist a short fat not-cute girl and it got more attention than all the other short fat cute girls put together

But proving that true talent and success has nothing to do with weight, a tall big-boned girl owned the shit out of the charts all year and a short skinny girl sucked up all the rest of the oxygen with a Sydney Town Hall performance that blew the wig right off the mayor’s head.

A guy with a weird name who everybody kind of knows, had a big hit about somebody he used to know, now everybody knows him but nobody knows who it was he didn’t know making him a greater unknown quantity than he was before he didn’t know her. Powerful music marketing at its best.

The ARIAs were better than last year. And I’m not paid to say that, but might get paid less if I do say they can still get a whole lot better.

Tim Rogers started an acting career. Who would have thought it??

Video Hits got canned. But Channel 10 are launching a new music video show in 2012, so video obviously never killed the radio star, how could it when it cant even kill itself?

So...

With the world predicted to end next year (again) we can at least be sure of an REM reunion....and of course Powderfinger’s Thinking About a Reunion tour and accompanying CD and book set.

Have a great Christmas and New Year. Buy lots of CDs for people under the age of 12, just to see what they make of ‘em.

See ya in 2012

-Zammit