Cruel Guards. Cruel world.

The Panics, yesterday, were announced as winners of the 2007 J Award for their album Cruel Guards; the (IMO) biggest and most important Australian music award, as given out by Triple J, and I'll admit to reacting with a few punches in the air and a general lapse of sang-froid. I'm allowed to from time to time. There has been some excellent Australian music in the last three or four years, but for me, The Panics sum up that excellence, and fingers crossed their up-coming world tour will gain them the wider success they deserve. Something that was discussed yesterday during the award was that Cruel Guards is a complete album, and The Panics noted that that was what they'd set out to make, which is refreshing. There are plenty of great songs around at any one time, but how often are great songs backed up by complete albums. Rarely. The Panics said they're not a band who churn out #1 singles, but decided long ago their focus was on the album as a whole, not the album being a collection of stand-alone singles. This is proof for me the art of developing an album has not been lost in the digital download age, where the industry (that, let's be honest, promotes singles over albums) feared that as users are able to select individual songs for download, the overall power of a well structured album would be lost, which I also feel is the catalyst behind the J Award; to encourage and promote the album above the singles. Personally, if Band A put out a great single, I'll go and buy/download the entire album. Sometimes I'm bitterly disappointed, though more and more the hit songs ARE being backed up by good albums, and Cruel Guards is a perfect example of this. Grab Don't Fight It as a taster, then get the full thing. Also, I love selling them to anyone who listens, Triple J should be congratulated, again, for devising this award and tomorrow (Sunday) they'll be playing Cruel Guards in full. How many radio stations do that? Go see them on tour if you can.

As for a cruel world, I'm just back from the gym, where I was again distracted continuously by that same London Preppy look-a-like, and again, the eye-contact continued to do nothing for my composure ... which was completely shot when a gorgeous girl in purple walked out of the pretend-to-learn-self-defence-by-punching-and-kicking-the-air class, over to My Future Boyfriend who promptly grabbed his bag and walked out with her.

Now, not all is lost, as he didn't seem overly pleased to be leaving when they were, and I can only put that down to the fact she had just cramped his style. Why? He is actually gay and they are in fact:
1) Brother and sister?
2) Just good friends?
3) House mates?

Or we can just accept that I am delusional and should really get over myself before I do something dumb. Again. Though that would make for good reading.