APRA Delivers Its Strongest Song of the Year Shortlist In Years

With APRA AMCOS the barometer of Australian music you can rest assured that Australian music is in fine shape, even it doesn’t make the ARIA annual Top 10.

The lack of impact Australian acts had on the 2017 annual ARIA chart did not reflect Australian artist creativity.

APRA bases its awards on songwriters and their songs. There is no sales benchmark, not Gold or Platinum criteria for success, there is no streaming play that sends the award off track.

The APRA Awards are voted for and only by songwriters and publisher members. As such, cheap (or actually expensive) marketing stunts cannot influence the vote.

The good news is that the 2018 APRA Song of the Year shortlist shows incredible talent generated some incredible songs in Australia in the past 12 months.

The APRA Awards winners will be announced in April.

TOP 20 CONTENDERS FOR 2018 APRA SONG OF THE YEAR

*Listed in alphabetical order of song title

• BOYS WILL BE BOYS (STELLA DONNELLY)
Stella Donnelly
• CADILLAC (ALL OUR EXES LIVE IN TEXAS)
Katherine Wighton, Hannah Crofts, Georgia Mooney, Elana Stone
• EVERYDAY’S THE WEEKEND (ALEX LAHEY)
Alex Lahey
• FALLIN’ (JESSICA MAUBOY)
Kayla Bonnici, Louis Schoorl, Peter Harding
• FIREWOOD AND CANDLES (PAUL KELLY)
Paul Kelly, William Miller
• FORGOT MYSELF (JEN CLOHER)
Jen Cloher
• HOLD IT TOGETHER (DAN SULTAN)
Dan Sultan, Alexander Burnett
• ISN’T IT A PITY (BERNARD FANNING)
Bernard Fanning
• LAY IT ON ME (VANCE JOY)
James Keogh, Dave Bassett
• MENDED (VERA BLUE)
Andrew Macken, Thomas Macken, Samuel Telford, Celia Pavey pka Vera Blue, Adam Anders
• MURDER TO THE MIND (TASH SULTANA)
Tash Sultana
• RUNNING SECOND (AINSLIE WILLS)
Ainslie Wills, Lawrence Folvig
• SLEEP DRIFTER (KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD)
Stu Mackenzie
• SNOW (ANGUS & JULIA STONE)
Angus Stone, Julia Stone
• STRANGER’S KISS (ALEX CAMERON)
Alex Cameron
• THAT FAR (6LACK)
Trevor Slade, Daniel Cartisano, Ricardo Valentine, Lucian Blomkamp
• WEEKENDS (AMY SHARK)
Amy Billings
• WHAT CAN I DO IF THE FIRE GOES OUT? (GANG OF YOUTHS)
David Le’aupepe
• YESTERDAY (360 feat HEIN COOPER)
Kaelyn Behr, Matthew Colwell, Nicholas Martin, Hein Cooper
• YOUTH (TIM ROGERS)
Tim Rogers