In a roll call that celebrates songwriters spanning pop, rock, country, R&B, hip hop, rap, soul, blues & roots, and dance genres, today APRA has announced the nominees for the 2021 APRA Music Awards.
The peer-voted APRA Song of the Year contenders are songwriters Rob Hirst (Sony Music Publishing), Bunna Lawrie (Universal Music Publishing) and Gadigal poet Joel Davison for Gadigal Land, Midnight Oil’s first single in 17 years. Tim Minchin (Kobalt Music Publishing) s nominated for Carry You, the song performed by Missy Higgins on Tim’s television series Upright. Guy Sebastian (Universal Music Publishing) returns with a back-to-back nod for Standing With You. Making the cut as a nominee for APRA Song of the Year is Kevin Parker (Sony Music Publishing), who won the top song gong in 2013 and 2016. This year his peers have placed him in the final five for Lost in Yesterday. Amy Shark (Mushroom Music) and co-writer Joel Little (Sony Music Publishing) round out the peer-voted category with Everybody Rise. Amy is nominated for the 5th consecutive year, a streak that began in 2017 with breakout hit Adore and saw her win APRA Song of the Year in 2019 with I Said Hi.
Amy Shark, Kevin Parker and Guy Sebastian have made the dual nominee list for 2021, which also features Tones And I, The Rubens, Andrew Farriss, Flume featuring Vera Blue and Dean Lewis.
Singer-songwriter Miiesha is both a dual AND first-time nominee, as are brothers Louis and Oli Leimbach aka Lime Cordiale. Miiesha appears in the brand new Most Performed R&B / Soul Work category for Twisting Words (with co-writers Stephen Collins and Mohamed Komba), while Lime Cordiale have landed a spot in Most Performed Alternative Work for Robbery.
Both Miiesha and Lime Cordiale are also recognised in the Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year category, which is determined by the APRA Board of Writer and Publisher Directors. Joining them in this heavyweight group are first-time nominees Grace Shaw pka Mallrat and songwriter, rapper, singer and producer, The Kid LAROI, who at 17 is the youngest nominee in 2021. Thelma Plum, recent winner of the Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition, rounds out the Breakthrough honours.
A total of 49 Australian songwriters have received their first ever APRA Music Awards nomination. They include; Joel Davison, Bunna Lawrie, DMA’s and co-writers Thomas Crandles, Joel Flyger and Liam Hoskins (their touring band members), Casey Barnes, MSquared (Michael Paynter, Michael Delorenzis), Brad Cox and co-writer Joseph Mungovan, Andy Mak, Melanie Dyer, John Courtidis, Winston Surfshirt, Isabella Kearney-Nurse, Spacey Jane, Hockey Dad and The Amity Affliction.
From those debuts comes the rise of fresh songwriters across two brand new Award categories Most Performed Hip Hop / Rap Work and Most Performed R&B / Soul Work, a whopping eight of the 10 nominated songs feature first time APRA nominees. They include Day1, No Money Enterprise, ONEFOUR, Youngn Lipz, Milan Ring and co-writer BLESSED, Becca Hatch and her four co-writers Maribelle Anes, Jamie Muscat, Willie Tafa and Solo Tohi.
For the first time, music fans will be able to watch rolling highlights on the night via the official APRA AMCOS YouTube channel. Stayed tuned for more details and an announcement of live performances.
The 2021 APRA Music Awards will be presented at a ceremony at the Sydney International Convention Centre Grand Ballroom on Wednesday 28 April, hosted by Julia Zemiro, Ziggy Ramo and Georgia Mooney.
Playlists of the nominated songs can be streamed on YouTube Music, Spotifyand Apple Music.
For the full list of nominated songwriters, composers and music publishers - see the APRA AMCOS website here.
