APRA announces the five best NZ songs from past year
The Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) has announced the top five finalists for its prestigious Silver Scroll award, presented at Auckland’s Vector Arena on Thursday September 29.
The Silver Scroll is regarded as New Zealand’s most prestigious acknowledgement for excellence in songwriting.
The 2016 finalists are:
Alt-country performer Tami Neilson (pictured), whose The First Man, co-written with brother Jay Neilson, about the death of their father. Neilson won the prize in 2014.
:: Stream The First Man on BandCamp here
Indie pop ‘n’ rock band The Phoenix Foundation (Samuel Scott, Lukasz Buda, Conrad Wedde, William Ricketts, Thomas Callwood, Christopher O’Connor) whose Give Up Your Dreams (Native Tongue Music Publishing) is about soldiering on in the face of adversity. This is their sixth nomination.
Auckland singer-songwriter Lydia Cole’s Dream is a two-part story about falling in love unexpectedly. It is her second nomination.
Wellington singer-songwriter Thomas Oliver receives his first nomination for quirky love song If I Move To Mars (Mushroom Music) which sees him fascinated with lying in the red dust, drinking Cognac and listening to records on the other planet.
Indie rock band Street Chant (Emily Littler, Billie Rogers, Alex Brown, Christopher Farnham) get their first nomination for Pedestrian Support League (Arch Hill Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing) about living in Auckland, and the feeling of returning from being on the road to a crummy flat in Grey Lynn.
“Great songs tell great stories and each of these songs give us beautiful, heartfelt tales of dreams, love and loss,” said APRA AMCOS Head of NZ Operations, Anthony Healey. “It’s a diverse and eclectic group of songwriters, each at the very top of their craft and each very much deserving of our celebration.”
Previous winners of the APRA Silver Scroll Awards, which celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, include Neil Finn, Ella Yelich-O’Connor (Lorde) & Joel Little, Ray Columbus, Shona Laing, Dave Dobbyn, Bic Runga, Don McGlashan, Chris Knox, Brooke Fraser and The Naked And Famous.
The other awards presented on the night are Best Original Music in a Feature Film Award, Best Original Music in a Series Award, SOUNZ Contemporary Award for excellence on contemporary composition and the APRA Maioha Award celebrating exceptional waiata featuring te reo Māori.
A songwriter (or a group of songwriters) will be inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.
The Silver Scrolls will be real-time broadcast and video-streamed by Radio New Zealand on RNZ National, Freeview Ch 50 and online at www.rnz.co.nz/music.