ARIA Awards 2023: Troye Sivan, Genesis Owusu, G Flip and Kylie Minogue lead the winners
Winners at the ARIAs included a pop singer’s euphoric club anthem, a celebrated Canberra hip-hop artist, a drumming singer-songwriter and the nation’s favourite pop princess.
A pop singer’s euphoric club anthem, a Ghanaian-Australian hip-hop artist, a drumming singer-songwriter and a returned national favourite pop princess were the key winners at the ARIA Awards on Wednesday.
Taken together, those artists – Troye Sivan, Genesis Owusu, G Flip and Kylie Minogue, respectively – show where the ears of the nation are attuned.
Sivan’s hedonistic single Rush earned him four trophies: best solo artist, public-voted song of the year, and two artisan awards for its engineer and producer, Styalz Fuego, aka Kaelyn Behr.
The chart-topping South African-Australian performer has described the song thus: “Rush is the feeling of kissing a sweaty stranger on a dancefloor, a two-hour date that turned into a weekend, a crush, a winter, a summer.”
Sivan, 28, was among the presenters at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Wednesday, and while Rush clearly resonated with ARIA voters within the local record industry, they’re not alone: earlier this week, Sivan received two Grammy Award nominations for the same track.
Having swept the ARIAs with his genre-hopping debut album two years ago, Owusu once again earned the applause of voters, who awarded him album of the year for Struggler, as well as best hip-hop release and best independent release.
Owusu, 25, is a Canberra-based artist whose work skirts numerous genres while rooted chiefly in hip-hop and R&B.
He accepted his newest ARIA plaudits long-distance from London, where he is performing ahead of an Australian tour to begin on December 1 in Perth.
The drummer, singer and songwriter who goes by G Flip – aka Georgia Flipo – triumphed in two of the public-voted categories, taking home trophies for best Australian live act and best video for Good Enough, directed by Kyle Caulfield.
Minogue, meanwhile, won best pop release for her global hit Padam Padam; the 55-year-old has recently begun a concert residency in Las Vegas.
The best group award went to Sydney indie rock trio DMA’S, while singer-songwriter Dan Sultan won best adult contemporary album.
US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift won the public-voted category of most popular international artist for the third time, ahead of her Australian tour in February.
The first ARIA Hall of Fame inductee since Archie Roach in 2020, meanwhile, was Melbourne quartet Jet, which closed proceedings on Wednesday night.
Jet’s spirited performance also reminded us that rock acts are generally in retreat, and rarely seen near the top of the weekly ARIA charts these days.
Yet with The Rolling Stones and The Beatles each releasing new music within the past month, these old hands reminded all those who followed of the value of expertly crafted songs that stand the test of time.
To read more about the 2023 ARIA Awards, including a full list of award-winners, click here.
More Coverage
Found: rock legend’s ‘lost’ songs
People are strange, The Doors told us, but no stranger than the tale of Jim Morrison’s ‘lost’ songs, believed to have turned up in a cluttered timber home on a remote hill in the Tasmanian bush.
A decade in the making, Wafia stuns on melodically rich debut
Once based in Brisbane, this talented artist has issued a series of superlative singles from her new home in LA, and her long-awaited debut album offers a treasure trove of alt-pop delights.