Shark gets teeth into top award
AMY Shark’s reckoning with her ghosts and Genesis Owusu’s explosive genre-bending commentary on racism and depression in Australia lead the nominations for the 2021 ARIA Awards.
While it was one of the toughest years on record for our pop industry, the great music kept coming and this year’s nominations roll call is an eclectic field of legends and rookies.
Shark’s indie pop record Cry Forever and Owusu’s globally acclaimed Smiling With No Teeth, each with six nominations, are the perfect bookends to illustrate the dizzying diversity of Australia’s sound of now.
Tasmanian country music stars The Wolfe Brothers were also nominated for Best Country Album with Kids On Cassette.
Gold Coast singer Shark, who is in the US working on songs for her third record, said the nominations gave our artists a much-needed boost after two years of chaos because of the pandemic shutdown of live music.
“It has been the ugliest couple of years for our industry, it just felt like you were putting music out into a vacuum and there was no way to gauge how it was connecting with fans at festivals or tours,” she said.
“So you best be damn happy with what you’re putting out there and I think this year, more than any other year, is an important time to celebrate our artists because we are on fire with talent and the songs coming out are so fierce and unapologetic.”
Owusu, who is likely to feature on best-of lists worldwide at the end of the year, said watching the global reaction to his dizzying, independently-produced blend of hip hop, soul, funk and punk from “my little bedroom in Canberra” made him fiercely proud.
“It’s been crazy, surreal to watch the reception the album got, to be honest,” he said.
The awards will be live-streamed on November 24 from Sydney.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Amy Shark – Cry Forever Genesis Owusu – Smiling With No Teeth Midnight Oil – The Makarrata Project The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You Tones And I – Welcome To The Madhouse