Folks, is it just me did this year’s ARIA awards feel like the beginning of a shift in the Australian music scene? Or at least, a shift in what’s getting mainstream and institutional recognition?

The big winners were Amyl and The Sniffers, who won four awards including the big one: Album of the Year. (They’re also nominated for a Grammy award, Best Rock Performance for “U Should Not Be Doing That”). That industry experts have awarded a woman-fronted punk band notorious for making overt political statements is, I think, a really good sign. While accepting the Album of the Year award, front woman Amy Taylor said: “As the new Prime Minister of Australia I would like to say: all immigrants welcome. Land back. The dole is going up. And every pub gets a million dollars.”

Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of artists across all disciplines making art that’s seemingly devoid of meaning, or pushing a political message inconsistent with their own apathy (yes, Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy I am talking about you two!) And we’ve also seen artists punished for making political art and political statements — there is aggressive censorship in Australian arts and literature right now, as well as global attacks on musical acts like British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan and Irish rappers Kneecap.

Amyl and The Sniffers have been vocal in calling Israel’s genocide a genocide, sticking up for transgender and queer communities, Indigenous people, all from the stage. The band’s ripper year is undeniable, but the ARIA judging process is kept secret so it still would have been easy for the Association to skip them and honour one of the less outspoken nominees.

I’m biased towards the things that I like obviously, but imo punk is the antidote to the more thematically shallow pop music that is dominating globally. Especially when the political environment is so fucked. We need to celebrate unashamed, angry, straight-talking punk in Australia as much (or perhaps more) than we do yet another indie surf-rock band. 

Amyl and The Sniffers are being celebrated by the Australian media the way that Genesis Owusu — the 2023 Album of the Year winner — deserved to be, but did not get. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out why.

There is also something cool and exciting happening with Ninajirachi, the 26-year-old DJ and producer who won the Best Solo Artist, Best Indie Record and Breakthrough Artist awards. Her experimental brand of “girl EDM” is extremely online, in a good way — the album is literally called “I Love My Computer”, and is the Gen Z coming-of-age story, exploring her relationship with technology growing up in the 2010s.

She beat Kylie Minogue, Missy Higgins and Paul Kelly (among others) to win Best Solo Artist. Celebrating artists who are bringing something new and interesting to Australia’s musical identity is what will take the industry forward and kill the ‘cultural cringe’ we often have for homegrown acts.

Barkaa also won Best Hip Hop/Rap Release — the first Indigenous woman to ever win this category.

It all adds up to the most relevant the ARIA Awards have felt in a long time.

That said, I don’t want to undermine how bad the state of Australian music is right now. The globalisation of entertainment in the digital era means big international acts get more online streaming and more radio play than Australian artists, which disadvantages local artists’ ability to build strong fanbases to support tours, physical music sales and merch sales — the main ways they actually make money. 

This year’s ARIA Awards were delivered in partnership with Spotify for the first time, which some say is part of the tech giant’s strategy of destroying the local music industry so that it can be seen swooping in to “save” Australian music. This piece on AAP is a very interesting read.

Gut Health, a punk band nominated for the Breakthrough Artist award, called out Spotify’s involvement in the ARIAs in September. “This feels like an important moment to reimagine how we value music. Buying records and merch directly, supporting local record stores and labels, subscribing to community radio, and grabbing tickets in advance are small but powerful acts. They help keep artists alive outside the streaming machine.”

It’s solid advice to remember heading into summer and the holiday break. While the likes of Amyl and The Sniffers fly the flag for a forward-thinking Australia on the international stage, we can do our bit for the local music scene by going to gigs, sharing our faves with each other, playing with the Ausify music initiative to discover something new.

This feels like a tipping point where Australia’s cultural identity could break out of the musical mould we’ve been stuck in for two decades, if we throw our weight behind the artists doing something bold right now.

PS: This Rolling Stone article was a fun, frank list of the best and worst moments of the ARIA Awards, if you want to catch up on the tea.

– Crystal
Founder & Chief of Everything at Zee Feed
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