Australia’s music awards the ARIAs have announced they’ll be going gender neutral scrapping gendered awards for male and female artists.

When the next round of awards are presented in November there’ll no longer be a Best Male artist, or Best female artist, instead just a simple Best Artist. Instead of their being five nominees for each award there will be ten.

“The time for separating artists based on gendered categories that exclude non-binary artists altogether has passed,” Annabelle Herd, chief executive of ARIA, said in a statement.

“The music industry is demanding a more equal, inclusive, safe and supportive space for everyone and ARIA is working hard to achieve that across the ARIA Awards and everything we do.”

This year’s awards will be presented digitally due to the continuing Covid-19 lockdowns on the east coast of Australia.

The awards are judged by a range of mechanisms including industry members, judging panels and public votes.  Last year Perth band Tame Impala picked up Album of the Year and was named Best Group, while Five Seconds of Summer won Song of the Year for Teeth. 

in 2020 Sampa The Great (pictured) was named Best Female Artist and also picked up Best Independent Release and Best Hip Hop Release, she took the opportunity to question the gendered set up of the awards when picking up her gongs.

OIP Staff

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