UPDATE 18/01/17: The nine albums of the 2016 Australian Music Prize shortlist have been unveiled.
ORIGINAL STORY: The judges of the 12th annual Australian Music Prize (AMP) have been shut away cranking the hundreds of homegrown albums that were released this year, and they’ve just emerged from their tune caves with a longlist of their faves. And we mean loooooong.
The panel has whittled this year’s 364 eligible albums — the most in AMP history — down to a group of precisely 61, with the likes of A.B. Original (Reclaim Australia), The Avalanches (Wildflower), Camp Cope (Camp Cope), Flume (Skin), Julia Jacklin (Don’t Let The Kids Win), King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (Nonagon Infinity), Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (Skeleton Tree), Twelve Foot Ninja (Outlier), Urthboy (The Past Beats Inside Me Like A Second Heartbeat), Violent Soho (WACO) and loads more in the running for the big gong and a cool $30K cashish.
That said, Flume has got to be the hot favourite after the swag of ARIA trophies he picked up at this year’s ARIA Awards.
Last year’s AMP prize was taken out by Courtney Barnett for her debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit, and there’s a handful of previous AMP winners back in this year’s longlist, with albums by REMI (2014), Big Scary (2013) and inaugural AMP winners The Drones (2005) all getting a nod.
Judge and former Grinspoon frontman Phil Jamieson says of the nominees: “Wowsers… what a trip… so many great records of so many genres… the Australian Music Prize has never been so sprawling… getting to the end of almost 400 albums… it has been rewarding but also somewhat exhausting… hope you love our Longlist as much as we do”.
But don’t love it too much, because the longlist is set to be whittled down even further, with a shortlist made up of nine albums to be announced on 18th January, with the winner to be announced in March 2017 and awarded the big $30K cash prize courtesy of Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA).
Check the full 2016 AMP longlist, below.
Watch: Flume – Live At The ARIA Awards 2016
12th Annual Australian Music Prize Longlist 2016
A.B. Original – ‘Reclaim Australia’
Archie Roach – ‘Let Love Rule’
The Avalanches – ‘Wildflower’
Big Scary – ‘Animal’
Big White – ’Teenage Dreams’
Camp Cope – ‘Camp Cope’
Cash Savage and the Last Drinks – ‘One Of Us’
Chook Race – ‘Around The House’
Curse Ov Dialect – ‘Twisted Strangers’
D.D Dumbo – ‘Utopia Defeated’
Deborah Conway/Willy Zygier – ‘Everybody’s Begging’
The Delta Riggs – ‘Active Galactic’
Dope Lemon – ‘Honey Bones’
Dorsal Fins – ‘Digital Zodiac’
The Drones – ‘Feelin’ Kinda Free’
Ducks! – ‘Ding Ding Ding’
Ela Stiles – ‘Molten Metal’
Emma Russack – ‘In a New State’
Flume – ’Skin’
friendships – ‘Nullarbor 1988 – 1989’
Gabriella Cohen – ‘Full Closure And No Detail’
Gawurra – ‘Ratja Yaliyal’
Gentleforce – ‘Refuge From The Great Sadness’
Halfway – ‘The Golden Halfway Record’
Jagwar Ma – ‘Every Now & Then’
Jarrow – ‘2003 Dream’
The Jezabels – ‘Synthia’
Julia Jacklin – ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – ‘Nonagon Infinity’
Koi Child – ‘Koi Child’
Liz Stringer – ‘All Of The Bridges’
Marcus Whale – ‘Inland Sea’
Mark Pritchard – ‘Under The Sun’
Melody Pool – ‘Deep Dark Savage Heart’
Mike Noga – ‘King’
The Moles – ’Tonight’s Music’
Mt. Mountain – ‘Cosmos Terros’
The Nation Blue – ‘Black’
NGAIIRE – ‘Blastoma’
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – ‘Skeleton Tree’
NO ZU – ‘Afterlife’
Olympia – ‘Self Talk’
Pale Earth – ‘Always’
The Peep Tempel – ‘Joy’
Pikelet – ‘Tronc’
Rainbow Chan – ‘Spacings’
REMI – ‘Divas & Demons’
Richard Cuthbert – ‘Peach Plum’
Safe Hands – ‘Tie Your Soul To Mine’
Sara Storer – ’Silos’
Sarah Mary Chadwick – ‘Roses Always Die’
Solo Andata – ‘In The Lens’
Sophie Hutchings – ‘Wide Asleep’
Stu Hunter – ’the migration’
Summer Flake – ‘Hello Friends’
Teeth & Tongue – ‘Give Up On Your Health’
Troy Cassar-Daley – ‘Things I Carry Around’
Twelve Foot Ninja – ‘Outlier’
Urthboy – ‘The Past Beats Inside Me Like A Second Heartbeat’
Violent Soho – ‘WACO’
Yeo – ‘Ganbaru’
