Amyl and the Sniffers have dominated the 2025 Arias, winning four awards including best group as well as album of the year, best rock album and best cover art for their album Cartoon Darkness.
“As the new prime minister of Australia, I’d like to say: all immigrants welcome,” quipped frontwoman Amy Taylor, accepting album of the year. “I’d like to say: land back, the dole’s going up, and every pub gets a million dollars.”
Taylor said that the album had changed their lives: “Probably won’t have to work at IGA ever again!”
She provided some of the night’s most memorable lines – often to laughter at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion. “I know you just like it because I was flashing my titties!” she shouted during the prize for cover art.
“We’re really not that good at speeches,” she confessed later, settling on a pithy motto instead: “Fuck the world!”
This is Amyl and the Sniffers’ second time taking home best group after their win in 2022, and third time winning best rock album after Comfort to Me in 2022 and their self-titled debut in 2019.
The quartet’s third album Cartoon Darkness is a prickly, propulsive record reckoning with a stratospheric rise which has seen them nominated for a Brit award as well as playing Glastonbury and Coachella this year. The Guardian’s review said the album “[suggests] a group aware of their self-imposed musical limitations to date, and interested in seeing how far they can push the boundaries of what they do”.
Close behind Amyl and the Sniffers was Ninajirachi, who won three awards from a leading eight nominations this year: best solo artist, best independent release and best solo artist.
“This is absurd!” the 26-year-old electronic musician laughed as she accepted best solo artist. “A lot of people here have probably never heard of me before tonight. I put out my first album this year called I Love My Computer … most of it was just written and produced by me.”
The Arias victory caps off a mammoth year for Ninajirachi, who has already won both Triple J’s album of the year for her maximalist ode to 2010s EDM, alongside the prestigious Australian music prize, a $50,000 award inspired by the UK’s Mercury prize given “purely on artistic merit”.
Electronic music had a particularly successful showing at this year’s Arias. Fellow dance artist Dom Dolla was recognised with seven nominations – though he only won one of them, for best dance/electronic release for his track Dreamin’. “I heard that Aussies consume more dance music than anyone per capita on earth,” he said. “I don’t know whether all the schooners and sun have fried our brains, but I’m really, really grateful.”
Prior to the ceremony, Dom Dolla was also announced as the winner of the inaugural global impact award for an artist who has for “breakthrough international success and cultural influence”.
Also introduced this year was a best music festival category, amid a trying time for Australian festivals besieged by climate woes, ballooning operating costs and a changing landscape for programming artists. The award went to Laneway, which, since its inception in 2005, has expanded from a single-street event in Melbourne’s CBD to a nationally touring behemoth counting Charli xcx, Chappell Roan and Stormzy among its headliners.
Aria mainstay Kevin Parker (AKA Tame Impala) took home his 14th and 15th Arias on the night. He won in both his categories – best engineered release and best produced release – for End of Summer, the first single from his album Deadbeat. “The amount of talent in Australia right now is insane,” Parker said in a video message. “I’m humbled at the end of the day just to be included in the conversation. It’s harder and harder to keep up with what’s happening in Australia now.”
Another former winner, Thelma Plum, won best pop album. “I can’t believe Tyra Banks just gave me an Aria,” Plum said, accepting the award from the supermodel and recent Sydney transplant. “This feels like a fever dream … I’ve been doing this since I was 17 years old.”
Other former winners to take home prizes this year included The Kid Laroi, who won song of the year for Girls; The Teskey Brothers, for best blues and roots album; Kasey Chambers, for best country album; the late Yolngu artist Gurrumul, for best world music album; Missy Higgins, for best adult contemporary album; Emma Memma, for best children’s album; and Troye Sivan, who won the public-voted best live act category after taking home three Arias last year for his 2023 record Something To Give Each Other.
Best hip-hop/rap release went to Barkaa, best video went to Keli Holiday for Dancing2, best hard rock/heavy metal album went to Thornhill, best soul/R&B release went to Boy Soda, and international artist went to Taylor Swift for the fifth time.
