AMP
Albums by Troye Sivan, Genesis Owusu, Gretta Ray and Jen Cloher are among the finalists for the 19th annual Australia Music Prize, announced Thursday, Nov. 29.
Sivan has a chance of extending his winning streak, which earlier this month saw the Aussie pop star clean up at the 2023 ARIA Awards with four wins, including song of the year and best solo artist. The Perth, Western Australia-raised singer and songwriter is one of nine artists nominated for the AMP, earning a nod for Something to Give Each Other, his ARIA Chart-topping third studio album.
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Meanwhile, Owusu can go a perfect two-from-two with Struggler, his sophomore effort. The Ghana-born, Canberra-raised hip-hop-meets-funk artist won the AMP in 2021 for Smiling with No Teeth.
Cloher, the singer, songwriter and guitarist, is recognized on the shortlist with I Am The River, The River is Me, her third AMP nomination after chances at the 2013 and 2017 editions.
Gretta Ray is no stranger to industry accolades, having triumphed in the Vanda & Young Global Songwriting Competition and Triple J Unearthed contest earlier in her career. Making Positive Spin, her second album, was “such a joyous, rewarding process,” she explains. The collection “heavily focuses on the theme of gratitude, and after touring it throughout Australia and the U.K. over these past few months, being shortlisted for this prize has me feeling more grateful than ever.”
Also in the running are longplays by Angie McMahon (Light, Dark, Light Again), Floodlights (Painting Of My Time), Mo’Ju (ORO,PLATA,MATA), Polaris (Fatalism), and RVG (Brain Worms).
One of the top honors in Australia’s music awards calendar, the AMP celebrates “the album as an art form,” regardless of commercial success.
Those eligible Australian artist albums were released during the period Jan. 1 to Oct. 27, 2023, with the winner snaring A$30,000 ($20,000), courtesy of headline sponsor SoundMerch. Almost 450 eligible albums were considered this time by a judging panel of industry experts.
“It’s always an honor to be shortlisted for the AMP, I know how rigorous a process goes into deciding on the final nine,” comments Cloher in a statement unveiling the shortlist. “To be honest, it’s the only music award that I take seriously on this continent.”
Spearheaded by founder and prize director Scott Murphy, previous AMP recipients include Sampa the Great (twice), the Avalanches, Courtney Barnett, the late Gurrumul, and the most recent champ, King Stingray.
The winner for 2023 will be announced during an event held next Wednesday, Dec. 6 at the APRA AMCOS offices in Sydney. Universal Music Australia labels EMI, Virgin and Island Records continue their support of the AMP by contributing funds which enable nominees to attend the finale.
2023 AMP shortlist:
Angie McMahon – Light, Dark, Light AgainFloodlights – Painting Of My TimeGenesis Owusu – StrugglerGretta Ray – Positive SpinJen Cloher – I Am The River, The River is MeMo’Ju – ORO,PLATA,MATAPolaris – FatalismRVG – Brain WormsTroye Sivan – Something to Give Each Other
Amazon is shutting down its live-radio app Amp, the company has confirmed to Billboard.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to close Amp,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “In creating Amp, we tried something that had never been done before and built a product that gave creators a place where they could build genuine connections with each other, and share a common love for music. We learned a lot about how live music communities interact in the process, which we are bringing to bear as we build new fan experiences at scale in Amazon Music.”
News of the shirtdown was first reported by Bloomberg.
Launched in March 2022, Amp allowed users to host their own shows by streaming music from a catalog of tens of millions of licensed songs from the three major labels, as well as indies including Beggars Group, PIAS, Believe and CD Baby. Though it was designed primarily for non-celebrity creators, Amp also hosted shows from high-profile artists including Pusha T, Tinashe, Travis Barker, Lil Yachty, Lindsey Stirling, Big Boi and Nicki Minaj, who brought her Apple Music show, Queen Radio, to the platform at launch. In September 2022, the platform also established a monthly fund to reward emerging U.S.-based creators for building loyal audiences on the app.
The Amp shuttering comes nearly a year after Business Insider reported that Amazon had laid off 150 employees at the app. At the time, the company confirmed to Billboard that it had chosen “to consolidate a few teams” at the division.
More widespread layoffs at Amazon came in January when the company announced it would jettison 18,000 employees, followed by its termination of an additional 9,000 employees in March. The layoffs affected workers across multiple divisions, including Amazon’s cloud computing unit AWS, its advertising business, gaming platform Twitch and stores division PXT. The cuts arrived following a surge in hiring amid the pandemic, during which Amazon doubled its employee count. But demand slowed once restrictions eased and people began venturing out of their homes again.
In March, following the announcement of the 9,000 additional layoffs, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company was in the midst of streamlining its operations due to the wobbly economy and the “uncertainty that exists in the near future.”
Live audio experiments flourished during the pandemic, with similar products including Clubhouse, Spotify Live (formerly Spotify Greenroom) and Twitter Spaces (now X Spaces) flooding the burgeoning space over a two-year period. But few gained traction: Spotify Live shut down in April 2023, while last month, Clubhouse rebranded itself as a social messaging app after waning in popularity once pandemic restrictions lifted. An outlier among these is Stationhead, which remains a popular vehicle to boost the streaming performance of new releases from A-list artists, including, recently, stars like Olivia Rodrigo and Ed Sheeran.
King Stingray wins the 18th annual Australian Music Prize, with the indie-rock outfit’s self-titled debut LP.
When their name was announced Wednesday (March 1) during a ceremony in Sydney, the Stingers, as they’re affectionately known in these parts, collected the $30,000 ($21,000) champion’s check, courtesy of major sponsor Soundmerch.
The AMP, which recognizes the outstanding creative Australian album of the past year, is the latest accolade for a band very much on the rise.
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Hailing from the Northern Territory, the Stingers are the reigning Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist winner at the 2022 ARIA Awards, and five tracks from the album impacted the triple j Hottest 100 countdown, making it one of the most successful Australian debuts in the poll’s history.
Also, the record led double j’s 50 best albums of 2022 list, and the group got a shout-out from prime minister Anthony Albanese, who chose album cut “Get Me Out” as his favorite song of the year.
Growing up in Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land, founding members Yirrŋa Yunupiŋu (frontman) and Roy Kellaway (guitar) formed King Stingray with friends Dimathaya Burarrwanga (rhythm guitar backing vocals and yidaki), Campbell Messer (bass) and Lewis Stiles (drums) in 2019. Last year, the group welcomed Yidaki-master Yimila Gurruwiwi into the fold.
King Stingray’s Kellaway and Burarrwanga accepted the AMP at the Oxford Art Factory in central Sydney.
“We’re so unbelievably stoked to have won the 18th AMP,” they said. “We had so much fun making this record and we just hope that listeners can hear the joy that we had making it, as well as feel the joy for themselves.”
The lads beat out a shortlist of albums by the likes of Sampa The Great, Julia Jacklin, and Tasman Keith.
“It really means the world to us to hear people enjoying the album,” the Stingers said, as they went on to thank their supporters and professional network.
A limited edition vinyl repress of King Stingray (via Cooking Vinyl/The Orchard) is due out March 24, and is sure to be a hot item.
The AMP is modeled on Britain’s Mercury Music Prize and Canada’s Polaris Prize, with a longlist of 490 eligible Australian albums individually reviewed this year by a panel of music experts.
Genesis Owusu’s lauded collection Smiling With No Teeth won the prize last time.
The shortlist of the 18th Soundmerch AMP:1300 – Foreign LanguageBody Type – Everything Is Dangerous But Nothing’s SurprisingCamp Cope – Running With The HurricaneJulia Jacklin – Pre PleasureKing Stingray – King Stingray –WINNERLaura Jean – AmateursParty Dozen – The Real WorkSampa The Great – As Above, So BelowTasman Keith – A Colour Undone
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