The Music 2015 Writers' Poll: Tara Johnston
album of the year
- Sufjan Stevens — Carrie & Lowell
- Laura Marling — Short Movie
- Father John Misty — I Love You, Honeybear
- Florence + The Machine — How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
- Belle & Sebastian — Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance
- Courtney Barnett — Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
- Young Fathers — White Men Are Black Men Too
- The Tallest Man On Earth — Dark Bird Is Home
- SOAK — Before We Forgot How To Dream
- Szymon — Tigersapp
song of the year
- Florence + The Machine — Ship To Wreck
- Torres — Sprinter
- Ainslie Wills — Drive
- EL VY — Return To The Moon (Political Song For Didi Bloome To Sing, With Crescendo)
- Kurt Vile — Pretty Pimpin
Artist of the year
- Sufjan Stevens
- Florence + The Machine
- Ryan Adams
- Kendrick Lamar
- Tame Impala
International artist Performance
- Sufjan Stevens
- Florence + The Machine
- Caribou
- Belle & Sebastian
- Future Islands
Australian artist Performance
- No. 1 Dads
- Meg Mac
- Gordi
- Angus & Julia Stone
- Paul Dempsey
top tv show
- Mad Men
- Nashville
- Girls
- The Affair
- Poldark
Top movie
- Me And Earl And The Dying Girl
- Testament Of Youth
- Dior and I
- Cinderella
- Inside Out
top website
- Buzzfeed
- The Onion
- Junkee
- The New York Times
- Tom and Lorenzo
2015 highlight of the year
Sufjan Stevens for releasing Carrie & Lowell, an album that had such genuine emotion, heart, and honesty to it. I can actually only listen to the song Fourth of July if I can fully focus on it and take stock after. Stevens had been tinkering around and generally being a bit goofy for the last few years, so for him to put this painstakingly thoughtful and beautiful album out into the world was gobsmacking. It doesn't feel like many artists today put themselves out there to this degree, to this depth. Harrowing.
Don't miss a beat with our FREE daily newsletter
prediction for 2016
I look forward to more amazing, thoughtful, full-throttle cool-pop from female artists like Daughter, hopefully Haim, Sydney artist Gordi, and Meg Mac. I think the 'boutique' festival trend will settle a bit and a few might quietly disappear, while a few others will more firmly establish themselves. It does become hard to keep track of them all. I also predict CDs will soon become even more endangered, and occupy just a fraction of their current space at JB Hi Fi. Streaming or vinyl it is, folks.
More From Our Network
