Amyl and the Sniffers have won the top gong at the Australian Performing Rights Association (Apra) awards, winning song of the year on Wednesday night for their track U Should Not Be Doing That.
The track – the first single from the Melbourne punk quartet’s 2024 album Cartoon Darkness – is a brazen kiss-off to industry gatekeepers and naysayers. “I think it’s a comedic way of rubbing the dog’s nose in its own dog piss after it weed on your favourite rug,” frontwoman Amy Taylor has said of the song.
The Apra award is the latest honour in a mammoth few months for Amyl and the Sniffers, who were recently nominated for best international group at the Brit awards. A Guardian review of Cartoon Darkness said the band were “on the brink of transforming critical acclaim and cult status into something much bigger”. True to form, they are now partway through a mostly sold-out US tour – which saw them play Coachella earlier in April – before heading to Glastonbury later this year.
Song of the year is the only peer-voted category at the Apras, where most awards are determined by airplay and royalties.
Also a big winner at the awards, which were held at Melbourne Town Hall, was Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker – who won both most performed Australian work and most performed pop work for his contribution to Dua Lipa’s single Houdini.
The Apra board of directors does have discretion over a few categories including songwriter of the year – which went to Apra favourite Troye Sivan. It marks the Australian pop star’s third win after taking home song of the year in 2024 for Rush and breakthrough songwriter in 2017.
The board also selected emerging songwriter of the year, which was won this year by Royel Otis – the indie rock duo who had a breakthrough year in 2024 with a debut album and two viral covers of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor and the Cranberries’ Linger.
A highlight of the night was the Ted Albert award – a lifetime achievement honour – which went to Kylie Minogue. “Seventeen-year-old me would not be able to compute the life that music has given me,” she said in a video acceptance speech. “We all know it’s work. You work for it, but I feel like whatever we give and whatever it might take from us, we receive more.”
Six-time Apra winner Sia won most performed Australian work overseas for her 2016 hit Unstoppable, which was released as a US radio single in 2022 after it resurfaced on TikTok that year.
Grammy winner Keanu Torres took home the international recognition award – previously titled the overseas recognition award – in the first time the prize has been presented since 2019. The songwriter and producer, also known as Keanu Beats, has worked with Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Drake, Kendrick Lamar and The Kid Laroi.
Other genre awards on the night went to Paradise by Coterie, for most performed alternative work; New Love by Ziggy Alberts, for blues and roots; Take Forever (Hally’s Song) by Cooper Alan, for country; Saving Up by Dom Dolla, for dance and electronic; Epitaph by Make Them Suffer, for hard rock and heavy metal; Fall Back by Lithe, for hip-hop and rap; Space by Kaiit, for R&B and soul; and Through the Trees by King Stingray, for rock.
