Tame Impala, Courtney Barnett Won, But Tina Arena Dominated The 2015 ARIA Awards

Tame Impala and Courtney Barnett may have collected the lion’s share of prizes at last night’s ARIA Awards, but it was Tina Arena who truly dominated.

At the ceremony, Arena brought down the house with a performance of her 1994 hit “Chains”, alongside The Veronicas and Jessica Mauboy. (Though, saying they performed ‘alongside’ her is a generous term. Despite the talent of her co-performers, Arena basically left the stage in a pile of rubble.)

Afterwards, she was welcomed to the ARIA Hall of Fame by Kylie Minogue. During her speech, Arena made a point of calling out commercial radio stations for their ageism.

“Ladies over 40 are still in the game; keep doing what you’re doing, ladies, because we will decide when it is time for us to stop,” she said, asking radio stations to “continue to support Australian music on the quality of the song and not the age of artist.”

Tame Impala walked away with three trophies for their hit record Currents, including Album of the Year, Best Rock Album and Best Group. (Ironically, in the studio, Tame Impala is basically just the one dude: frontman Kevin Parker.)

Courtney Barnett also scored three gongs, for Best Female Artist, Best Independent Release and Breakthrough Artist, off the back of her acclaimed album Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit.

Both Tame Impala and Barnett scored two further prizes at the ARIA Fine Arts & Artisan Awards last month.

Vance Joy was named Best Male Artist and Conrad Sewell’s “Start Again” was deemed Song of the Year (voted on by the public).

Triple J Breakfast host Matt Okine, while collecting his accolade for Best Comedy Release, lamented the absence of female nominees in his category. The speech was cut from the televised broadcast of the ceremony.

News.com.au reached out to Network Ten for an explanation. They were told: “The decision on which awards are broadcast are made by the ARIA Board, not by Network Ten.” However, an ARIA spokesperson told the outlet that Best Comedy Release was never scheduled “to go to air.”