Aria awards 2018: Amy Shark, Gurrumul and Kasey Chambers win big in moving ceremony

Amy Shark and Gurrumul were among the big winners of this year’s Aria awards, at a star-studded ceremony held at the Star casino in Sydney, which featured live performances from UK pop star Rita Ora, and Australia’s 5 Seconds of Summer, Courtney Barnett and Shark herself.

Nominated for nine awards in total, Shark took home three of the biggest, winning album of the year, best female artist and best pop release for her #1 album, Love Monster. Her single I Said Hi picked up the Aria for producer of the year at an earlier event.

“2018 has been a very amazing year for women in music – and in every industry around the world actually,” Shark said, accepting the award for best female artist. “I believe we all work just as hard as any male in music and I thank you all – both here and abroad – for believing that the sex of a human doesn’t define their worth or ability.”

The event paid tribute to the late Indigenous artist Gurrumul, whose album Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow) was released after he died in July 2017, at the age of 46. The album – the first in an Indigenous language to top the Aria charts – won him best male artist and best independent release on Wednesday night, and best cover art and best world music album in October.

Jessica Mauboy, Barnett and Briggs performed a musical tribute to Gurrumul with spoken word from his daughter Jasmine Yunupingu, as an orchestra played in a semicircle around an acoustic guitar, standing alone. Accepting the award for best male artist, Yunupingu said, “He was a special person to everyone who he met. And all he wanted was for people to like his music and our Yolngu songs and stories.”

Jimmy Barnes won best original soundtrack for Working Class Boy: The Soundtracks. In the media room he apologised for swearing on air (“I forgot where I was!”), and opened up about the toll that his memoirs and film have taken on him.

“All the stuff that was in the movie and in these books was poisonous to me, it was killing me. To get it out has helped. Now I’ve been talking about it for two years solid ... it’s starting to kill me again,” he said, laughing. “It was a bit overwhelming, actually.”

But the message, Barnes said, was an urgent one: “I wanted to draw attention to the families struggling all around Australia. They’re struggling with poverty, with alcoholism, domestic violence. Sixty-odd women have been killed this year and we’re worried about terrorism?”

“People who are washed over by this plague of domestic violence in this country are dying, right now. And the only way it’s going to change is if we all reach out to each other – and if government gets more help to families, to struggling families to help with addiction, to help with alcoholism, to help.”

Kasey Chambers won best country album, and became the youngest person to ever be inducted into the Aria hall of fame. The moving tribute brought her to tears, as Missy Higgins, Kate Miller-Heidke, and Amy Sheppard sung Chambers’s hit Not Pretty Enough, and Paul Kelly read out a poem he wrote for her.

High waters, hidden lakes, and your songs keep pouring from you, just like a levy breaks and all those fires burn fierce in you.

Kasey, they’ll never call you tame, that is why you live right here, in my own hall of fame.

In her speech, Chambers thanked her parents for the advice they’d given her. “My mum has taught me over the years that being a bitch doesn’t make you strong, and being strong doesn’t make you a bitch. It’s knowing the difference between the two. You can be strong and kind at the same time.

“My dad said to me once, ‘just don’t be a dickhead’. It’s been the best advice to follow … You don’t have to drag other people down to get to the top. You don’t have to treat people like shit.”

She said: “I don’t think that I’m standing up here because I’m a strong woman, or in spite of being a strong woman. I think that I’m standing up here because I’m just myself, which is all that any of us ever need to be.”

In the media room later, she said that the poem from Kelly “killed me”.

“I’m so overwhelmed … I didn’t know he’d written a poem … That was one of the most special things that has ever happened to me.”

Courtney Barnett, who was nominated for eight awards in total, became the first female solo artist in Aria history to win best rock album, for Tell Me How You Really Feel – which also won engineer of the year, for Burke Reid.

But she didn’t get much in the way of screen time on Nine, which broadcast the ceremony.

In the media room after, Barnett talked about the importance of remaining independent.

“Starting Milk Records, and releasing all my music through that label, I’m really proud of it. And the community that’s built around it is inspiring to be a part of, to see other artists grow. I’m really proud of it.”

5 Seconds of Summer opened the ceremony with a performance of Youngblood, and won the Aria for best group, as well as the fan-voted categories of best live act, and song of the year. With a fierce young fandom who’ve followed them through multiple sound reincarnations, they also won the loudest screams on the red carpet.

“We want to be a peoples’ band and we want to play to a lot of people – and not just the fanbase we have now,” said drummer Ashton Irwin in the media room afterwards. “We really believe that this band can exist for a while – we look up to the Rolling Stones and whatever, but that’s a long, long, long, long shot. But, why not!”

Other performers included Ora, George Ezra, Dean Lewis, Barnett, Shark and Keith Urban, who brought Nicole Kidman as his guest, and closed the ceremony with a duet with Shark.

Aria awards 2018: full list of winners

Album of the year:

WINNER: Amy Shark – Love Monster
Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
Gurrumul – Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow)
Pnau – Changa
Troye Sivan – Bloom

Best male artist:

WINNER: Gurrumul – Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow)
Dan Sultan – Killer Under A Blood Moon
Dean Lewis – Be Alright
Troye Sivan – Bloom
Vance Joy – Nation Of Two

Best female artist:

WINNER: Amy Shark – Love Monster
Alison Wonderland – Awake
Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
Sia – Flames
Tash Sultana – Flow State

Best dance release:

WINNER: Pnau – Go Bang
Alison Wonderland – Awake
Fisher – Losing It
Peking Duk – Fire
RÜFÜS DU SOL – No Place

Best group:

WINNER: 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood
DMA’S – For Now
Peking Duk – Fire
Pnau – Go Bang
RÜFÜS DU SOL – No place

Breakthrough artist:

WINNER: Ruel – Dazed & Confused
Alex Lahey – I Love You Like A Brother
Jack River – Sugar Mountain
Mojo Juju – Native Tongue
Odette – To A Stranger

Best pop release:

WINNER: Amy Shark – Love Monster
5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood
Dean Lewis – Be Alright
Jack River – Sugar Mountain
Troye Sivan – Bloom

Best urban release:

WINNER: Hilltop Hoods – Clark Griswold (feat. Adrian Eagle)
360 – Vintage Modern
Esoterik – My Astral Plane
Kerser – Engraved In The Game
Mojo Juju – Native Tongue

Best independent release:

WINNER: Gurrumul – Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow)
Angus & Julia Stone – Snow
Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
DMA’S – For Now
Pnau – Go Bang

Best rock album:

WINNER: Courtney Barnett – Tell Me How You Really Feel
Camp Cope – How To Socialise & Make Friends
DMA’S – For Now
Luca Brasi – Stay
Middle Kids – Lost Friends

Best adult contemporary album:

WINNER: Vance Joy – Nation Of Two
Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice
Dan Sultan – Killer Under A Blood Moon
Missy Higgins – Solastalgia
Odette – To A Stranger

Best country album:

WINNER: Kasey Chambers & The Fireside Disciples – Campfire
Adam Eckersley & Brooke McClymont – Adam & Brooke
Fanny Lumsden – Real Class Act
The Wolfe Brothers – Country Heart
Travis Collins – Brave & The Broken

Best hard rock/heavy metal album:

WINNER: Parkway Drive – Reverence
DZ Deathrays – Bloody Lovely
King Parrot – Ugly Produce
Polaris – The Mortal Coil
West Thebarton – Different Beings Being Different

Best blues & roots album:

WINNER: Tash Sultana – Flow State
Angus & Julia Stone – Snow
Emily Wurramara – Milyakburra
Mama Kin Spender – Golden Magnetic
Ruby Boots – Don’t Talk About It

Best original sound track or musical theatre cast album:

WINNER: Jimmy Barnes – Working Class Boy: The Soundtracks
Evelyn Ida Morris – Acute Misfortune (Original Soundtrack)
Jessica Mauboy – The Secret Daughter Season Two
LIARS – 1/1 (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists – Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical (The Original Cast Recording)

Best children’s album:

WINNER: Justine Clarke – The Justine Clarke Show!
Lah-Lah – 10th Birthday Party
Sam Moran – Santa’s Coming!
Teeny Tiny Stevies – Helpful Songs For Little People
The Wiggles – Wiggle Pop!

Public voted awards

Song of the year: 5 Seconds Of Summer – Youngblood

Best video: Dean Lewis – Be Alright

Best Australian live act: 5 Seconds Of Summer

Best international artist: Camila Cabello

Music teacher of the year: Scott Maxwell (Grant high school, Mount Gambier SA)