For many of us recorded music mattered even more in 2020. In a year when COVID-19 left Australians fretting over the immediate future, longing for friends and family, and in some places living through an extended lockdown, the songs we grasped tight provided comfort and encouragement.
Popular music is part of the chatter of our daily lives, heard in snatches and quick to pass, but it also takes barely a moment for a tune to acquire a deeper, enduring purpose for the listener. With that in mind, this year’s Australian Recording Industry Association Awards cap a unique and demanding year – there’s a touch of the commemorative alongside the celebratory: they did it and we did it.
Hosted by Delta Goodrem, who has won a dozen of the pointy gongs herself, the 2020 ARIA Awards will be held – without an audience – at Sydney’s Star Event Centre on November 25 and broadcast live on Channel Nine. There will be guest presenters, at least one shambolic awards show moment and an eclectic mix of Australian talent competing. Here are my predictions on who could – and who should – win the major categories.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Sampa The Great marked herself as one of the most vital voices in hip-hop with her debut album The Return.
Nominations: DMA's, The Glow; Jessica Mauboy, Hilda; Lime Cordiale, 14 Steps to a Better You; Sampa the Great, The Return; Tame Impala, The Slow Rush
Who will win? Tame Impala Who should win? Sampa the Great
The welcome thing about these nominees is collectively they refute any easy summation of where you might place the centre of Australian music right now. The cushioned alternative guitars of DMA’s, Jessica Mauboy’s commanding soul vocals and Lime Cordiale’s Northern Beaches twist on vintage 1970s pop each drop their own diverse pin in a sizeable map. Traditionally, Album of the Year has been a fait accompli ARIA – size matters, especially if it involves international success. But in a year where key elements of the music industry, such as the festival scene, have been in recess, two distinct acts stand out. Tame Impala’s journey from psychedelics to gilded pop on the act’s fourth album has been typically crafted and immersive, but Sampa Tembo marked herself as one of the most vital voices in hip-hop with The Return, an epic debut album that brims over with creative assurance and cross-cultural energy. It would be a benchmark victory.
BEST GROUP
Kevin Parker crafted Tame Impala's journey from psychedelics to gilded pop on the act’s fourth album. Credit: Neil Krug
Nominations: 5 Seconds of Summer, Calm; DMA’s, The Glow; Lime Cordiale, 14 Steps to a Better You; Tame Impala, The Slow Rush; The Teskey Brothers, Live at the Forum
Who will win? Tame Impala Who should win? Tame Impala
A small gripe: the music industry voting panels that determine most of the winners on the night do have a tendency to be overly generous in successive years for leading acts. The Teskey Brothers picked up Best Group in 2019 for their studio album Run Home Slow, so they probably didn’t need to be singled out again this year for a live record. That’s not the fault of the Melbourne roots-rock quartet, but other acts could have done with a share of the spotlight.
That said, Best Group belongs to Tame Impala, which in recording terms isn’t a group at all. Kevin Parker is a studio savant, a one-man journey into sound via Perth, who surveys everything from downtown disco and uptown funk to synth grooves and experimental pop. The Slow Rush lived up to its name, a revelatory epic that revealed new and uneasy layers with each listen.
BEST FEMALE ARTIST
The phenomenal success Tones and I enjoyed with Dance Monkey in 2019 will probably spill over into this year.
Nominations: Amy Shark, Everybody Rise; Miiesha, Nyaaringu; Sampa the Great, The Return; Sia, Together; Tones and I, Bad Child/Can’t Be Happy All the Time
Who will win? Tones and I Who should win? Sampa the Great
Amy Shark has been an ARIAs favourite over the last few years, picking up six awards in a still developing career, so there’s certainly a chance that she makes an inside run with Everybody Rise, an emphatic piece of pop drama.
I believe Sampa the Great deserves this category, but the phenomenal success Tones and I enjoyed with Dance Monkey in 2019 will probably spill over into this year, with the anthemic Bad Child, a deceptive statement of familial distress, providing residual success for Toni Watson.
Whatever happens, take a few minutes to discover the least known by far of the nominees. Hailing from the tiny central Queensland Aboriginal community of Woorabinda, the young Indigenous singer-songwriter Miiesha (pronounced My-ee-sha) grew up singing in a church choir before discovering neo-soul melodies and R&B beats. Nyaaringu is a hugely promising debut album, notable for the economy of expression. Unlike most first albums, it doesn’t try to squeeze too many ideas in.
BEST MALE ARTIST
Troye Sivan excelled with his lockdown EP In a Dream, which was the most taxing release of his career.
Nominations: The Kid Laroi, F--- Love; Archie Roach, Tell Me Why; Ruel, Free Time; Guy Sebastian, Standing With You; Troye Sivan, In a Dream
Who will win? Troye Sivan Who should win? Troye Sivan
This category is a prime example of how artistically diverse the voices in Australian music have become. Traditionally it’s been the preserve of the folk-rock singer-songwriter, which is by no means a slight when that genre is headlined by the incomparable Paul Kelly and includes one of this year’s most welcome nominees in Archie Roach.
There’s a 47-year age gap between the 64-year-old Roach and 17-year-old Sydney rapper the Kid Laroi, but these two Indigenous musicians have an intuitive sense of self-expression underpinning their contrasting sounds (it’s a shame they can’t meet on the night). But the nod here goes to Troye Sivan, who wasn’t sure what he was making with In a Dream, an EP released while he was back home from Los Angeles experiencing lockdown with his family in Melbourne. Clocking in at just under 20 minutes, it’s the most emotionally taxing release of the pop polymath’s career, bracing at times but also a breakthrough.
BREAKTHROUGH ARTIST
This year Lime Cordiale, aka brothers Oli and Louis Leimbach, achieved a signature single with Robbery and placed four songs into Triple J’s Hottest 100.
Nominations: Alex the Astronaut, The Theory of Absolutely Nothing; The Kid Laroi, F--- Love; Lime Cordiale, 14 Steps to a Better You; Mallrat, Driving Music; Miiesha, Nyaaringu
Who will win? Lime Cordiale Who should win? Mallrat
There are years the Breakthrough Artist ARIA should be renamed the Persistence ARIA: this is one of them. Brothers Oliver and Louis Leimbach formed Lime Cordiale in 2009 and spent years learning their craft, both as composers and performers. But everything they were pursuing didn’t truly coalesce until these last 18 months, when they achieved a signature single with Robbery, placed four songs into Triple J’s Hottest 100, and then had their second album, 14 Steps to a Better You, top the charts. You could forgive the duo for celebrating a little.
By contrast, Brisbane’s Grace Shaw, who performs as Mallrat, is still just 22 years old and has been making nimble and idiosyncratic pop songs since her high school days. Led by the single Charlie, Driving Music was her third EP, and it marked the point where the casual intimacy and chilled flourishes of her songs sounded strikingly emblematic.
BEST INDEPENDENT RELEASE
Archie Roach has already been announced as the esteemed inductee into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Nominations: Archie Roach, Tell Me Why; DMA’s, The Glow; Lime Cordiale, 14 Steps to a Better You; Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ghosteen; Sampa the Great, The Return
Who will win? Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Who should win? Archie Roach
This is a choice between two voices for the ages: Nick Cave’s weathered baritone, suffused with such a sense of loss that his mighty backing band the Bad Seeds recede into the ethereal, and Archie Roach’s bedrock croon, which can move between the wrenching and the quietly wondrous. Each has enjoyed, in terms of record label and career philosophies, long-standing stints as independent artists. Ghosteen is Cave’s 17th album, continuing a run of deeply involved late-career releases, but as revered a figure as he is, you can make the case this should be Roach’s year. He’s already been announced as the evening’s esteemed inductee into the ARIA Hall of Fame, but Tell Me Why also encompasses a body of work that stretches back to 1990 and includes the epochal Took the Children Away, the landmark song that illustrates Aboriginal Australia’s stolen generations. That is a legacy worth recognising.
SONG OF THE YEAR
Flume, with feature vocalist Vera Blue, have produced a song that is a bewitching collision of jagged production and defiant longing.Credit: Kane Skennar
Nominations: 5 Seconds of Summer, Teeth; Sam Fischer, This City; Flume featuring Vera Blue, Rushing Back; Hilltop Hoods featuring Illy and Ecca Vandal, Exit Sign; The Jungle Giants, Heavy Hearted; Lime Cordiale, Robbery; Mallrat, Charlie; The Rubens, Live in Life; Ruel, Painkiller; Tones and I, Never Seen the Rain
Who will win? Lime Cordiale Who should win? Flume
Whether you think in terms of mixtapes, CD compilations or streaming playlists, this is quite the collection of songs (good luck getting the sequencing right). Of the seven leading ARIAs up for grabs discussed here, this is the only one decided by the public vote. In other words, it could go a lot of ways. That’s exacerbated by the fact there isn’t a clear favourite.
Lime Cordiale’s Robbery is a ludicrously catchy song, the kind you can hear just once and easily hum, while Teeth by 5 Seconds of Summer is a slick reinvention for the electronic age by guitar-toting teen idols. I’m tipping Lime Cordiale because the ARIAs gravitate to a night-long narrative, but the honours belong to Flume and feature vocalist Vera Blue, whose Rushing Back is a bewitching collision of jagged production and defiant longing. No one knows more about fantastic beats and where to find them then Harley Streten.