Missy Higgins and Jet pick up more music gongs

Missy Higgins

SYDNEY - They're already ARIA (Australian Record Industry Association) winners, and last night Missy Higgins and Jet picked up more gongs at the Australian music industry's annual songwriting awards.

Both Higgins and rock band Jet scored two Australasian Performing Right Association awards at last night's event in Sydney.

The APRA awards recognise composers and songwriters who achieve excellence in their craft.

Newcomer Higgins won Song of the Year for Scar.

While a number of the awards are based on statistics, Song of the Year is voted by APRA members and is considered the most prestigious.

The chart-topping Higgins picked up the best pop release at the 2004 ARIA Music Awards for Scar.

The Melbourne singer was also nominated in the same category for Ten Days.

She beat From the Sea by Eskimo Joe, Look What You've Done by Jet, and Young Man Old Man (You Ain't Better Than the Rest) by The Dissociatives, to win Song of the Year.

Higgins, 21, who co-wrote Scar with Kevin Griffin, was on tour in Britain but in a prerecorded acceptance speech said she was honoured to receive the award.

"Wow, this is such a great honour," Higgins said.

"It means so much to me to have Song of the Year, and especially because it's voted by all you musicians and songwriters."

Scar, she said, was a song about "people's need to pigeonhole things in order to process them".

"It's also about realising you've trusted the wrong people and finding a way to benefit from the scars they've left behind," Higgins said.

Higgins also received the APRA Board of Writer and Publisher Directors Breakthrough Award, which goes to an emerging songwriter.

Rock band Jet took home two APRA awards, winning Songwriter of the Year and Most Performed Work Overseas award for their popular song, the ARIA-winning Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

Jet was unable to attend the ceremony and taped a recorded speech.

"This is a real honour to receive this award," band frontman Nic Cester said.

"There have been so many people who have helped make this album pretty successful.

"We've had fun over the past two years."

Pete Murray won Most Performed Australian Work with his ballad So Beautiful, while country music singer Kasey Chambers took home Most Performed Country Work award, her fifth APRA award, for Like a River.

Newcomer Daniel Merriweather won Most Performed Dance Work category with City Rules.

The most-performed Foreign Work Award went to US band 3 Doors Down for the song Here Without You.

Concert promoter Michael Chugg took home the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music.

Chugg has more than 40 years' experience in the music industry, during which he organised the annual Golden Stave Luncheon event and also the Waveaid tsunami benefit concert. 

The awards were held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.

Chambers, Eskimo Joe, Evermore and Melinda Schneider performed live.

Presenters included Billy Thorpe, Beccy Cole, Tim Freedman and Peter Garrett.

WINNERS

Song of the Year: Scar by Missy Higgins

Writers: Missy Higgins and Kevin Griffin

Songwriter of the Year: Jet

Breakthrough Award: Missy Higgins

Ted Albert Award For Outstanding Services to Australian Music: Michael Chugg

Most Performed Australian Work: So Beautiful by Pete Murray

Writer: Pete Murray

Most Performed Foreign Work: Here Without You by 3 Doors Down

Writers: Robert Harrell, Christopher Henderson, Matthew Roberts and Bradley Arnold

Most Performed Country Work: Like A River by Kasey Chambers

Writer: Kasey Chambers

Most Performed Dance Work: City Rules by Daniel Merriweather

Writer: Daniel Merriweather

Most Performed Australian Work Overseas: Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet

Writer: Nicholas Cester and Cameron Muncey

Most Performed Jazz Work: Drive By by The Necks

Writer: Lloyd Swanton, Christopher Abrahams and Anthony Buck

- AAP