The 2020 Queensland Music Awards went down inside Brissie’s Fortitude Music Hall last night, celebrating Sunshine State-bred tunesmiths’ artistic and commercial success of over the past year.
Leading the long list of trophy winners was Thelma Plum, who snagged the coveted Album Of The Year gong with her critically-acclaimed debut album Better In Blak, while The Jungle Giants took out both the Song Of The Year and the Pop categories for their latest single ‘Heavy Hearted’.
Elsewhere, DZ Deathrays took out the Heavy category with ‘Still No Change’, Eliza & The Delusionals won the Rock category with ‘Just Exist’, Carmouflage Rose nabbed the Hip-Hop gong for ‘Sele’ and The Kite String Tangle got the Electronic/Dance award for ‘P()L4R’.
While Brisbane punk icon Brentyn ‘Rollo’ Rollason was posthumously honoured with the Grant McLennan Lifetime Achievement Award for his decades of inspiring others in the music industry via his work onstage for Blowhard and offstage with Splurt Records, whereas the $10,000 Queensland Government’s 2020 Billy Thorpe Scholarship was awarded to Harry Phillips, who scores a fat cash prize to record his next release along with career planning advice from Chugg Entertainment.
QMusic CEO Angela Samut says: “2019 was a stellar year for Queensland music and tonight we got to celebrate some of our finest homegrown talent who are at the forefront of Queensland artists making big waves on the national and global music front.”
Catch the full list of 2020 QMA winners below.
Album Of The Year – Presented by APRA AMCOS
THELMA PLUM – Better In Blak
Billy Thorpe Scholarship – Presented by Queensland Government through Arts Queensland
HARRY PHILLIPS
QMusic Honorary Award
DENIS HANDLIN
Blues / Roots – Presented by Byron Bay Bluesfest
BUSBY MAROU -‘Naba Norem’
Thomas Marou, Jeremy Busby
Country – Presented by CMC Rocks
OH HARLOW – Give It A Miss
Tiana Dennis, Briannah Dennis, Nolan Wynne
Electronic / Dance – Presented by The Big Pineapple Music Festival
THE KITE STRING TANGLE – ‘P()L4R’
Daniel Harley, Bridgette Amofah
QMusic Emerging Artist Of The Year- Presented by Noisegate
HOPE D
Export Achievement Award – Presented by Lyrical Road
NAT DUNN
Grant McLennan Life Achievement Award – Presented by QMusic
BRENTYN ‘ROLLO’ ROLLASON
Heavy – Presented by The Tshirt Mill
DZ DEATHRAYS – ‘Still No Change’
Shane Parsons, Simon Ridley, Lachlan Ewbank
Hip-Hop / Rap – Presented by The Sound Garden
CARMOUFLAGE ROSE – ‘Sele’
Graham Herrington, James Angus, Matthew Khabbaz
Highest Selling Single
AMY SHARK – ‘Mess Her Up’
Amy Shark
Highest Selling Album
CONRAD SEWELL – Life
Indigenous – Presented by TRYP Fortitude Valley Hotel
MAU POWER – ‘Arrived ft. Marcus Corowa’
Patrick Mau
Jazz – Presented by Running Boards
SEAN FORAN – ‘Monkey’
Sean Foran
Pop – Presented by Hit Network
THE JUNGLE GIANTS – Heavy Hearted
Sam Hales
Rock – Presented by The Triffid
ELIZA & THE DELUSIONALS – ‘Just Exist’
Eliza Klatt, Kurt Skuse, Ashley Martin
Schools (Grade 6 – 12) – Presented by JMC Academy
HANNI – ‘Wired’
Hannah Schloman, Marco Ghikas
Singer Songwriter / Folk – Presented by Savannah In The Round
JAGUAR JONZE – Beijing Baby
Deena Lynch, Tim Tan
Song Of The Year – Presented by Green Beacon Brewing Co
THE JUNGLE GIANTS – ‘Heavy Hearted’
Sam Hales
Soul / Funk / RNB – Presented by Katarzyna
PINK MATTER – Soul Fruit
Kerry Raywood, Isobel De Leon, Megan Christensen, Elizabeth Scott
World – Presented by Howard Smith Wharves
MATT HSU’S OBSCURE ORCHESTRA – Make Everything
Matthew Hsu, Ashleigh Finlay
