The 31 Most Read Articles We Published in 2016
1. RIP Bek Moore
Putting together this list of times Bek’s bands were written about, it looks like she has to have been one of the most written about Brisbane musicians in the five and a half years that Collapse Board has been running. (Justin Edwards)
2. Why The Australian Music Press needs to get in the Bin
The Australian music press makes me angry on pretty much a daily basis for its overall terribleness – but for the last few days, I’ve just been seething. That’s why they all belongs in the bin. (Justin Edwards)
3. The Worst in Music of 2015
So this year, we watched as a band named after an off-hand racist comment rose on the charts. They’ll no doubt crop up on bunches of more positive lists this month, even after colleges like Oberlin barred them from playing. Sang Nguyen, a writer at Impose and also a second-generation Vietnamese-American, wrote a killer letter that best summed up the indecency of it all (Lee Adcock)
4. Does the Australian Music Industry Turn a Blind Eye?
The Australian music industry has learned well from politics: news stories only last a few days, and then everyone forgets and moves on. (Justin Edwards)
5. A Different Kind of Free: A Review of The Drones Feelin Kinda Free (TFS Records)
This album isn’t as Gala Mill or Wait Long By The River. It’s not as lyrically rich – it’s more upfront and blunt. And The Drones prove they can turn their back on guitar rock and still deliver an interesting sound. So go on, dance a little. And think about how fucked things still are. And if you’re like me, you’ll be grateful that The Drones, with their AMP win, Triple J adoration, and songwriting accolades safely behind them, feel free enough to rant and accuse and diverge like never before. That’s a good enough freedom for me. (Alexis Late)
6. Song of the Day #724 – Nachthexen
Nachthexen treat punk like Dada – out of dissonant elements, they invent new art from the remains of the old, and tap into an angst and fury greater than themselves. What I’m saying is: Nacthexen, please come this way and show lads how to fuck shit up. (Lee Adcock)
7. Lee Adcock’s Best of So Far List for 2016
I had a very dreary introduction here when I started writing this article. It involved despair about the US, physical and mental fatigue from my job, more despair for the UK, and similar nagging thoughts. I tried to deny the purging effect that music can have on my mood – the ascent from the mundane to the universe where songs live, a universe far greater than mine – tried to write it off as mere diversion. But no, we are wiping that slate clean. For I realize now that I write what I write because music brought me INTO the world, not out of it; and more than ever, I am driven by the need to communicate, to extend beyond the self, to praise what moves me and to shoot down what doesn’t, because THAT is how I stay in this world. Without these dialogues, I will fade. (Lee Adcock)
8. The Drones – Feelin Kinda Free (TFS Records)
You’ve got to build yourself up to a new Drones album. Gird your loins. Get ready for the assault on your ears and your guts. You know it’s going to hurt. You know it’s going to be an atonal, wall of noise, hectoring, lecturing gut fucking. You know you’re going to have to ease your anxiety and angst later on with some soft Sufjan, some Gillian Welch to root yourself back to earth, some Courtney Barnett for frivolity and lightness. (Boris van de Legende)
9. The Modern Music Festival Summed Up in One PR Email
The first rule of Collapse Board was “No news” and having content that’s not PR email-after-PR email obviously makes us better than all those other Australian music website sites. You know the ones, the ones where 40% of their content is copy and pasting PR emails, 40% is copying and pasting from social media and 10% is copying and pasting video clips from US chat shows. (Justin Edwards)
10. RIP David Bowie
I guess, as that well-shared tweet said, if you’re ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie. There might not be any new music to come (although given the amount of aborted projects he’s started but never finished, who knows) but there’s a lifetime of songs that are never going to get old. (Justin Edwards)
11. The Goon Sax – Up to Anything (Chapter Music)
The Goon Sax write sharper tunes than they should at their age, and the fact that they’re not resigned to finding some element of coolness just languishing in their formative years is both heartening and refreshing all at once. (Nicholas Kennedy)
12. A Knot in my Heart: The Raincoats at the Feminist Library Summer Benefit, London, 2 July 2016
It’s hard to talk about The Raincoats. I’m writing this from a teahouse in London, trying to figure out why that is. I can’t find the right phrase to describe the knot in my heart that tightens when I think about them. It’s the kind of knot that holds you together. It’s a knot that forms when you’re about to fray and glue isn’t the right descriptor. It’s a knot that formed a long time ago. It’s like a cheap gift from a childhood sweetheart. It’s a pretty band-aid from the school nurse. It’s a lolly from the dentist. It’s a friendship necklace that means forever. It’s the antidote that came when I was sad and didn’t know who I was, and it grasped the loose ends in my heart and tied them together with the simple words, “You are a Raincoats fan”. (Alexis Late)
13. 10 Things I Learned from an Afternoon with Everett True
Meeting your heroes. I don’t want to spend too many words on that, partly because he might read this and it’ll be weird, but also because it doesn’t really matter. I’ll just say I had the nicest afternoon, learned more about music writing from listening to ET than from the past years trying to imitate him, and realised once again that music is the strongest bond. (Caspar Jacobs)
14. The Best New Music 29.02.2016
With Mossy, it’s like I Oh You are trying to make amends and seek redemption for forcing the Worst Band In Australia (DMA’s) on us. I could almost start to think about forgiving them. Almost. (Justin Edwards)
15. A 2013 Review of The Rubens, Winners of triple j’s Hottest 100 in 2016
And while we’re on the subject of the Hottest 100, given the well-known issues with having the country’s national day on the day that white settlement began in Australia, has triple j ever considered taking some moral leadership and moving the Hottest 100 to a different day? (Justin Edwards)
16. The Best New Music 17.02.2016
A new series in which we diligently filter the contents of our inbox to present the best new singles and previews from upcoming albums that we’ve received this week. By next week we hope to have come up with a snappier name. Topping the list this week is rising Brisbane emcee Mallrat and her clip for Sunglasses. (Justin Edwards)
17. Omni – Deluxe (Trouble In Mind Records)
The album burns quickly through its run time – since the songs on here really aren’t meant to be sat down and studied, you’ll probably spin them several times before you notice the little bits and pieces that make them great, like Frobos’s wry lyricism that all too often gets lost in the jumble. For a post-punk fan that needs something to jolt them awake, Deluxe is a dream. (Nicholas Kennedy)
18. Athens Popfest Day 3: The Crush
I could write a million words, enhance my lexicon so that eloquent words could better express what ordinary lingo cannot, and yet I could never replicate in me the fluttering in me as I sailed home. Oh yes, Friday shone bright and clear – anywhere I turned, someone was there to validate my presence, and music lifted me out of my miserable mundane routine of a life, again and again. But what kept me up that night, well into 3 AM, was this: what is this trembling? Latent symptom of spending a day enmeshed in music? Consequence of that extra cup of coffee? Or mere awe before perceived intellect, honesty, bravery, command over the written and spoken word? Please, please, be anything but love. (Lee Adcock)
19. St Jerome’s Laneway Festival @ RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane, 06.02.2016
I miss the memo and forget to don the Violent Soho t-shirt uniform, which looking about today seems mandatory. (Darragh Murray)
20. Athens Popfest 2016 Day 1: The Embrace
Driving into Athens still excites me, even a year after I moved out to the ATL. The butterflies kick in well before I’m even downtown, usually right around the inner loop. It’s also a sense of supreme familiarity – I could turn here at Prince, or I could drive further down to Chase. Likewise, in Little Kings, I enter and can count at least five people that I could sit and talk to, including both guys handing out the tickets and tote bags. One day, I hope, Atlanta will open its arms to me in this way. But for now, for the next four days, Athens shall embrace me, and I will embrace her back. (Lee Adcock)
21. Song of the Day #719: Skating Polly
When I heard ‘Perfume For Now’, I took to Twitter with the words “Song of the year in February? Maybe.” (Hannah Golightly)
22. Collapse Board’s Most Read Posts of 2015
Rock and Roll isn’t dead – it’s just in a coma and being wheeled around the country for a $200 entrance fee. Kurt rolls in his grave. There goes my hero, fleecing the music industry for all it’s worth. Watch him as he goes.
23. The Collapse Board Guide to Writing about Dead Rock Stars
Welcome to Collapse Board’s handy ‘To Write About Dead Rock Stars’ cut-out-and-keep guide for online music publications to help you maximise your content, while minimising your effort and input. If a rock star dies, these are the posts that you will need to publish. Remember, it’s important to have a different font and colour scheme from other online music publications to avoid being identical to them. (Justin Edwards)
24. Athens Popfest 2016 Day 2: The Dance
I recall being in some kind of daze afterwards. My only thought was to egress as soon as possible so as to not be engulfed by the stupid student masses that still swagger/stagger through the streets at two in the morning. The whole impact of this night – this wondrous, sweaty, steamy, blurry, neon-lit night – would not catch up with me until five hours later, when I awaken stupefied with a shattered back. So that happened. So I actually forgot myself and engendered such happiness that I have not felt in months (and shall not experience again until at least a week later). So I have found the company of fellow wallflowers and introverts, transformed into rock stars and superfans. So that was bliss. And the dream was still yet to come. (Lee Adcock)
25. Song of the Day #745: Croque Madame
As summer winds down and the weather begins to chill, Croque Madame give us one last trip to the coast, the lake, the river, or even the local pool. We have no information about this band or who they are, reminiscent of Stereolab, Stereo Total, April March, and the Lucksmiths all at once, yet not 100% of any of those artists. Do we need to find all the details and know the backstory? Who wrote this happy little pop song? Let’s not waste another passing moment of the tail-end of summer to find out. Why not let it be just a great pop song? The who, what, when, where, and why can come later. (Mike Turner)
26. Song of the Day #746: Skinny Girl Diet
The badasses behind Skinny Girl Diet are no enigma – they’re just three young artists who have a million things to say and loads of volume to say it with. And fuck me, is “Pretty Song” ugly. Gloriously, deliciously, perversely ugly. Delilah Holiday is flexing her knuckles, scowling at you from across the void. Ask Skinny Girl Diet to cheer up, and Amelia Cutler will seize yr wrists while Delilah and her sister Ursula bash you into a bloody pulp. Well, OK, so I doubt that the band have ever pummeled anyone literally, but this is sound of decimation, an upheaval of dust and dirt for all-male punk bands twice their age to chew on. SO EAT IT, GUYS. (Lee Adcock)
27. Ciggie Witch – Classic Connection (Lost Lonesome, Osbourne Again)
I’ve been trying to decide how Ciggie Witch, as a band, fits into my understanding of Australian music at the moment. Do the band members consider this a ‘side project’ from their other gigs? Is that an outdated way to even look at music? Zach and Lachlan have The Ocean Party, Ash Bundang has Totally Mild and Zone Out, Snowy is this kind of ethereal being that touches literally everything, but how does Mitch fit in? One answer could be just “Hey, everyone loves everyone and everyone plays in bands, so whatever dude, don’t put me in a box”. But, as a ‘musical critic’, I guess it’s my job to ruin those kinds of beautiful informal connections so we can have an easily understood #OzMusicScene. (Nicholas Kennedy)
28. Fun to be had: Yacht’s Sex Tape Stunt and the Internet Hive Mind
YACHT were addressing the same themes they’ve presented in their art for a decade, but seriously dialling up the uncomfortable blurring of art and reality, with surprising levels of emotion and uncertainty, offset with some winking details. But that sort of subtlety gets lots in the quickly credulous, quickly reacting Internet. The comments thread ballooned with the sincere sympathy of emotional fans. Fuck those guys; we love you; we wouldn’t dream, etc. (Ben Green)
29. Never Kiss a Tory: Interview with Peaness
I’ve just started a zine called Mother’s Pride. It’s a riot grrrl feminist underground punk zine whose manifesto includes inspiring and supporting women to pick up guitars and sing and scream. The first interview for the zine is with local band Peaness. I get to the pancake shop early with a tripod to set up the camera and test the sound. I get permission to film from the manager, promising to keep the swearing to a minimum and stay in the corner where we won’t film the other patrons. Peaness arrive and we all order these amazing scotch pancakes. I have mine with peaches, ginger, honey icecream and maple syrup. With our orders taken, the manager kindly obliges in turning down the music and we begin the interview. (Hannah Golightly)
30. I Just Want to Stay Excited: An Interview with the Goon Sax
“I want people to think about me”, sings a wistful Louis Forster on the title track of The Goon Sax’s candidly self-deprecating LP, Up To Anything. The album deals in subjects that pertain to certain kind of world-weary adolescence that’s never cynical nor maudlin. Instead, it’s presented with a wide-eyed excitement that veers from idle hopelessness to teenage euphoria. Having formed in 2013, when all three members were still at school, their music realistically deals in both the joy and grievances of our formative years, but it’s also identifiable to anyone who’s ever experienced heartache, self-doubt, social awkwardness and feeling out of place. (Hayley Scott)
31. Rock ‘N’ Roll Soldiers: An Interview with Carlotta Cosails of Hinds
This is exactly the type of thing Hinds mean when they have said in other interviews that they are tired of people describing them as ‘fun’ or, worse, ‘girls just having fun’. “That sentence is terrible. No man, dude, that ‘just’ is the killer word, we don’t only want that in our lives. I think sometimes we get offended because of that, because it looks like we do everything effortlessly, but there is a huge amount of work behind what we do. Even on the album, we take care of every detail. We are getting bigger and bigger and the amount of work is growing too, and we really really work a lot, and that’s why we jump when people say ‘You are girls having fun’. I mean, yeah, I love what I do, but we work so, so hard.” (Caspar Jacobs)
