NZ music boom expands awards

By GRAHAM REID

Changes to this year's New Zealand Music Awards - the Tuis - will see the introduction of four new categories and two which recognise commercial success.

The breadth and diversity of the New Zealand contemporary music scene will be acknowledged with the inclusion of categories for best urban, dance, roots and Pacific Island albums.

The new urban award expands the previous r'n'b hip-hop category to allow for the many emergent styles. Dance allows for hardcore, house, techno, garage and other styles, but remixes of non-dance acts are not eligible.

The new roots category includes country, blues and folk.

Entries in the new Pacific Island award can be in a native Pacific language, bilingual or in English.

The new categories of highest-selling single and highest-selling album will counter the controversy over whether awards for artistic endeavour should take into consideration their dollar value.

Similar awards for literature, film and arts haven't considered commercial success a factor.

When the question was put last year to Terence O'Neill-Joyce, then chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand, he said that because the music industry was driven by money, commercial success was a reasonable criterion.

The commercial categories will acknowledge that aspect separately and will be done by company audit.

The less objective judging has also undergone changes, bringing it closer to how the Brits in Britain are judged.

The number of judges has been expanded from 30 to 90, drawn from various sectors of the music industry and media, who will judge 11 of the categories.

Nine other specialist categories - such as producer, best albums in the classical, folk, jazz, gospel and mana reo areas - will be judged by a "voting school" of people with specific expertise in those areas.

All up there will be 23 awards at the Tuis 2003: the 11 categories which include album and single of the year, best group, best male and female artist, and songwriter of the year; the nine specialist categories; the two commercial awards; and the international achievement award judged by the music awards committee.

The 38th New Zealand Music Awards will be held on April 30.