The 2024 APRA Awards have come under fire for having all-male winners taking home awards in the domestic Most Performed Works categories, with APRA AMCOS making a statement addressing criticism since the awards aired on Wednesday (1 May).
It’s important to note that the awards for Most Performed per genre are based purely on a statistical analysis of APRA’s database and that women took home the two big international awards.
On Wednesday, the awards went to Dean Lewis (Most Performed Australian Work and Most Performed Pop Work), grantperez (Emerging Songwriter of the Year), Birds Of Tokyo (Most Performed Alternative Work), Casey Barnes (Most Performed Country Work), Parkway Drive (Most Performed Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Work), Polish Club (Most Performed Rock Work), Ziggy Alberts (Most Performed Blues & Roots Work), ONEFOUR (Most Performed Hip Hop / Rap Work), Shouse (Most Performed Dance/Electronic Work), and JKING (Most Performed R&B / Soul Work).
In the peer-voted categories, Troye Sivan took home the Peer-Voted APRA Song of the Year, and The Teskey Brothers were awarded the Songwriter of the Year by the APRA Board of Writer and Publisher Directors.
In the Most Performed international categories, Australia’s Sia won the Most Performed Australian Work Overseas award for Unstoppable, and Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero was recognised as the International Work of the Year.
APRA AMCOS addressed this year’s awards with a statement posted on social media.
The statement begins, “In recognising the incredible talent in Australia’s music landscape, it’s important to acknowledge that as an organisation that champions gender diversity through advocacy, funding and creative opportunities, there’s more to do to address the disparity in the industry of male to women, non-binary and gender diverse award winners.”
APRA AMCOS “continually question the absence of diversity” within the industry, such as general rooms, executive offices, stages, on radio and streaming platforms, writing that the organisation “commit to amplifying the entirety of Australia’s musical brilliance.
“Changing these outcomes requires a concerted effort across our industry and our society. This is not easy,” the statement continues.
Concluding the statement, APRA AMCOS wrote that they must continue to do the work in addressing diversity in music “so that works written by a diverse mix of songwriters get listened to, broadcast, downloaded, performed, played, and the numbers start to tell a different story.”
Following the winners’ announcement, APRA AMCOS CEO Dean Ormston said, “Congratulations to all the nominees and winners, each of them outstanding songwriters and music creators who are the living epitome of what it is to be born global in their success.
“It was a memorable night where we honoured several first-time winners as well as established national treasures, including the extraordinary Bart Willoughby.”
Ormston’s statement concluded similarly to the one you can read below, addressing the work APRA AMCOS has on the horizon.
