Temper Trap, AC/DC Win APRA Gongs
News posted Tuesday, June 22 2010 at 05:00 PM.
Related: Temper Trap, AC/DC.
Need more proof that Australia’s music industry is little more than a back-slapping contest for the majors? Ladies and gentlemen, we present the 2010 APRA Music Awards.
Held at a red carpet gala event at Sydney’s Convention Centre last night (June 21), the awards claim to celebrate “composers and songwriters who have achieved excellence in their craft over the last year”. How? By doling out gongs based largely on “APRA’s statistical analysis” (ie. sales performance-based statistics), which goes some way to explaining why Eskimo Joe walked away with two awards: Rock Work of the Year and Most Played Australian Work for their utterly forgettable, Tea Party-esque single ‘Foreign Land’.
Other winners included Ash Grunwald (Blues & Roots Work of the Year), Troy Cassar-Daley (Country Work of the Year), Hilltop Hoods (Urban Work of the Year) and US band The Fray (International Work of the Year).
When it came time to actually decide on awards – you know, the old-fashioned non-mechanical way – APRA’s board of writers and publisher directors picked AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young for Songwriter of the Year. With all due respect to the brothers Young, and to reiterate a similar sentiment from our friends at The Vine, THEY'VE BEEN WRITING THE SAME SONG FOR THIRTY SEVEN YEARS.
To their credit, the board honoured the iconic Jimmy Little with the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services To Australian Music for a career spanning over six decades. It also awarded Empire of the Sun with Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year, while Temper Trap walked away with the peer-voted Song of the Year for ‘Sweet Disposition’, which has sold more than 750,000 copies worldwide. Here’s what the band had to say about the track in an interview with M+N in April last year – yes, it’s really been out for that long:
Is it a make-out song?
Dougy: Well, you can mow the lawn to it if you want.
Toby: My girlfriend told me that when ‘Sweet Disposition’ came on at V Fest, heaps of people starting making out [laughs]. I was a little bit freaked out by that. I hadn’t noticed it before.
Is that [guitarist] Lorenzo [Sillitto’s] riff?
Dougy: That’s his riff, yeah.
It sounds like it came together quite naturally?
Dougy: Very naturally.
Toby: Two practices and a night for Dougy to write the lyrics. We were really happy with it straight way. It’s one of those ones where you don’t need to do anything – it just pops out of nowhere.
For a full list of APRA winners click here.
CORRECTION: APRA's "statistical analysis" is based on performance statistics, not "sales" as printed above.
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At least they got this right.
Umm.. Empire of The Sun ''Breakthrough Songwriter''?
What? But.. Luke was (in) the Sleepy Jackson....
Fuck they sold a lot of copies of that single.
How? By doling out gongs based largely on “APRA’s statistical analysis” (ie. sales)
um, a bit of simple research. APRA's statistical analysis has nothing to do with sales. It's all about performance, whether on radio, TV, in shops, live etc. also has nothing to do with ''the majors''.
So sales?
have a look at APRA's board and tell me that again.
Didn't Donnie Sloan and Nick Littlemore write the music for Empire of the Sun? Why does Mr Steele get the APRA credit?
Majors is usually used as a reference to major record companies. Apra has equal representation on board from writers and publishers unlike say ARIA. ''major'' publishers do not hold a majority on the board.
Mr Steele get's the credits because he wrote the words
''Walking on a dream''
Genius!
every publisher on APRA's board is from a ''major''.
also, the point wasn't that the major labels influence the voting, it's that when you hand out awards that are supposed to acknowledge ''excellence'' but are instead based on''performance statistics'' the winners are invariably drawn from the same predictable, NOVA-playlisted pool.
That point is taken. Most performed never equate to excellence. And it becomes more like the MIX than the nova pool.
Out of curiosity..
Does Nova FM rate a lot better than Triple J in the capital cities? What are their standings in the ratings?
It seems like being Nova-playlisted does a lot more if you're a (very commercial sounding) band.
Yeah, good question...... I don't have the figures but my guess would be that NOVA rates the shit out of J's in all areas.
Figures anyone?
summary of latest radio survey figures here:
triple j in sydney at 4.7%, 2DAY FM at 9.7%. not clear on Nova's overall ranking.
woops. link:
http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music-news/media/2010/06/22/radio-ratings-survey-4-wrap-up/
'Sweet Disposition' was released in 2008. Probably should have been nominated in 2009 instead.
2011 APRA Music Awards nominees announced
May 26, 2011 - 12:06PM
John Butler and Kasey Chambers are again among the nominees for the annual APRA Music Awards after their respective songs Revolution and Little Bird earned praise from their peers.
They are among five nominees for 2011 Song of the Year which also include pop songwriters SIA and Samuel Dixon nominated for their catchy disco hit Clap Your Hands, Birds of Tokyo for Plans and Angus and Julia Stone for their ARIA-winner Big Jet Plane.
Awards veteran Butler received five nominations for this year’s gongs. In addition to Song of the Year, he was nominated twice for Most Played Australian Work and twice for Blues and Roots Work of the Year with Close to You and One Way Road.
“Songwriting is a bit of a... she’s a mysterious woman in my life,” Butler said in a video interview released by APRA.
“Song has a universal quality to it. Even though you have not lived the life of the story in the song, you somehow can relate to it, you somehow feel it’s you.
“Songs that can say five hours of conversation in a phrase, that’s the magic of song writing (...) when you are saying things so succinctly and so universally and so potently in a way that everybody can relate to.”
Butler said it was difficult to produce such powerfully emotive songs but that “once in a while, it happens”.
Brisbane quintet Powderfinger received a post-farewell nomination for the glorious Burn your Name while their Sunsets tour mates Jet have been nominated for the track Seventeen taken from their third album Shaka Rock.
Former APRA Award winner Guy Sebastian was nominated with co-writer and performer Eve Jeffers for the effervescent track Who’s That Girl, which reached Platinum sales status in Australia four times.
The Country Work of the Year category features new and established songwriters including Catherine Britt and co-writer Melanie Horsnell for Can’t Change a Thing. Hot country duo McAlister Kemp received their first ever nomination for their catchy song Hell Yeah while Kasey Chambers, the winner of the 2011 International Songwriting Competition Grand Prize for her track Beautiful Mess, returns to this category with Little Bird.
Golden Guitar winners The McClymont sisters along with co-writer Nathan Chapman were recognised for Wrapped up Good and country music legend Lee Kernaghan was nominated for Planet Country along with co-writers Colin Buchanan, Matthew Scullion and Garth Porter.
California Gurls, performed by Katy Perry, was nominated for Most Performed International Work. The classic by Brian Wilson and Michael Love was reworked by Calvin Broadus, Katheryn Hudson, Martin Sandberg, Lukasz Gottwald, Bonnie McKee and Benjamin Levin.
It will fight it out with Fireflies by songwriter Adam Young who performs under the moniker Owl City. Lead vocalist and songwriter of Train, Patrick Monahan, was nominated along with co-writers Amund Bjorklund and Espen Lind for Hey, Soul Sister. Will Adams a.k.a will.i.am received a nomination for O.M.G (performed by Usher featuring will.i.am) while Pink, Martin Sandberg and Johan Schuster are in the running with Whataya Want From Me performed by Adam Lambert.
In Rock Work of the Year, band Gyroscope was nominated for Baby I’m Getting Better while Amy Meredith received their first APRA nomination for their song Lying, their first Top Ten single to date. Powderfinger returns with Burn your Name as do Birds of Tokyo with Plans. Previous APRA nominees Jet round out the category with their song Seventeen.
Five nominees will contest the Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year. They are Anthony Jackson, Ian Kenny, Adam Spark and Adam Weston from Birds Of Tokyo; Nikolas Kaloper, Samuel Lockwood, Hayley McGlone and Heather Shannon from The Jezabels; Perth’s Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, Dan Sultan and co-writer Scott Wilson and Megan Washington.
The 2011 APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) awards will take place on Tuesday June 21 at Carriageworks, Sydney, hosted by Christ Taylor and Andrew Hansen from The Chaser.
The event will be broadcast by Max on Foxtel and Austar on July 7 at 9:30pm.