. . World News – AU – ARIAs are back to end a tough year in music. Here’s what you need to know

The pandemic may have messed up live music, but the industry is still keen to celebrate what it can around 2020.

Instead, there will be a pre-show stream on YouTube from 4:30 p.m. that will include interviews and the presentation of some awards. The dress code is « anything goes ».

The band, which revolves around the brothers Oli and Louis Leimbach, has been making refined, soulful pop songs that are full of synthesizers and falsetto vocals for more than a decade.

In July, they released their second record, 14 Steps To A Better You, which reached number one on the ARIA album charts and was a candidate for album of the year.

It includes the title Robbery, voted seventh time in January’s Hottest 100 (they had four titles in the top 40). .

Robbery has also been a mainstay in a number of low-key, socially aloof club shows the band played in Sydney that year, rather than the larger venues they certainly could have occupied. The ARIA’s song of the year is coming up.

Kevin Parker and his band were due to tour Australia next week on the back of their latest album The Slow Rush, but that has been postponed until December next year.

Instead, Parker has been hiding in his new beach block in WA, working with The Streets, The Weeknd and Mark Ronson.

The Slow Rush is nominated for Album of the Year, while Tame Impala is nominated for Best Group and the single Lost In Yesterday for Best Pop Release.

Parker and co hope to add to the eight ARIAs they already have, including Album of the Year wins for Lonerism (2013) and Currents (2015). .

The internationally known rapper has six ARIAs, including album of the year for The Return.

The Return, an exploration of the identity and home of an artist who grew up in Africa and is based in Australia, won the coveted Australian music award in March. The 27-year-old was the first to win this award twice.

In 2019, she won ARIA for best hip-hop publication, making her the first woman of color to do so.

In this category she meets four men this year: Briggs, Illy, The Kid LAROI and Baker Boy, although singer JessB can be seen in Meditjin, the latter’s nominated title.

Sampa is also in the running for album of the year, best artist and best independent release.

The multiple ARIA-winning pop band 5 Seconds of Summer is up again for the song of the year (for Teeth), a category they won earlier.

Other big names are in the mix: Amy Shark has been named Best Artist again, while DMAs, Sia, Troye Sivan, Archie Roach, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, as well as last year’s big winners, Tones, and me all have won several nominations.

When it comes to breakout stars, you can’t look past Miiesha, a woman from Pitjantjatjara / Torres Strait Islander of central Queensland who was first spotted about her only Black Privilege last year before joining EMI signed.

She has five awards for Nyaaringu, her debut album which is triple notated « captures the complexity of the individual indigenous experience through universally appealing songs ». .

This album, produced by Paul Kelly and won two ARIAs, contained the song Took The Children Away, which was based on Roach’s experience as a member of the Stolen Generations.

Took The Children Away became just one of many songs Roach wrote about structural racism and the disadvantages of indigenous Australians.

In 2020 when the pandemic pulled out of his plans for his final tour, he released a revised version of Charcoal Lane and worked on educational resources to teach children about the stolen generations.

Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem was originally dismissed as « women’s library crap ». . . . until it took off in the charts.

Today’s ARIA Awards will also include a tribute to Australian singer Helen Reddy, who passed away in September.

Dami Im, Emma Donovan, Kate Miller-Heidke, Missy Higgins, Mo’Ju and others will collaborate on a version of Reddy’s global hit, I Am Woman.

There will also be performances by American pop star Billie Eilish, Tame Impala, Lime Cordiale, Sampa The Great and Amy Shark.

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ARIA Music Awards, Australian Recording Industry Association, Music of Australia