Guardian Australia’s
music critics and staff bring you their favourite records of the year – in no particular order
Every now and then an album breaks through the usual channels to make fools of what is left of the local music industry. Emma Swift’s album of Bob Dylan covers, Blonde on the Tracks, was one of them. While the album was a hit on US and
UK Americana charts,
Australian radio programmers couldn’t work out what format to slot it in. Was this country music or indie? Listeners didn’t care: Blonde on the Tracks stormed into the top 10 of the Australian mainstream charts on its first week of release.