Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) is a non profit, non government association dedicated to the growth and development of Australian independent artists, record labels and distributors across Australia and the world.

Over the last 3 Months, AIR has asked independent musicians, journalists, labels and promoters to nominate their favorite Australian independent albums of all time for our poll. In all, over 140 albums were nominated, of which 50 have made the final cut of voting. Take a look at the full list on the AIR website.

I did a quick run-around today at Carlton and got the staff to nominate their Top 5 from the list. Some of our hard-core musos were pretty funny to watch: arguing over who was or wasn't independent, who wasn't on the list and should have been and how they could possibly choose 5.

In fact, there was a pretty wide spread, with the winning album only having 7 votes, the next three all having 6 and then four albums had 5 votes each.

Anyway, here is the top bunch as chosen by Carlton on Thursday, it will be interesting to see how they compare with the AIR list published tomorrow:

• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son
• The Avalanches - Since I Left You
• Flowers - Icehouse
• Archie Roach - Charcoal Lane
• Dirty Three - Horse Stories
• INXS - INXS
• Gotye - Like Drawing Blood
• The Necks - Sex