The Datsuns drive home four awards

New Zealand Music Awards Results The Datsuns drive home four awards

Four quiet country boys with a huge stage presence who belt out classic guitar rock are the big noise from this year’s New Zealand Music Awards.

The Datsuns have claimed four of the top Tuis at New Zealand’s premier music awards announced tonight in Auckland.

The rock band has won Album of the Year, Export Gold Best Group, Outstanding International Achievement and Xbox / ZM Breakthrough Artist of the Year for music released in 2002.

Other multiple winners include established vocalist Bic Runga and the Grey Lynn-based four-piece band Goodshirt.

Bic Runga has taken the Best Female Vocalist, Best Solo Artist and Highest Selling Album Awards while last year’s Top New Act Goodshirt walked away with Tuis for mOnstavision Single of the Year and Songwriter of the year for their number one hit Sophie.

Last year’s Music Awards multiple winner Che Fu grabs the award for Best Male Vocalist while the Best Urban Album Award goes to popular newcomers Nesian Mystik.

Salmonella Dub captures the award for Red Bull Best Dance Album for Outside the Dub Plates. The band won three awards last year.

The Juice TV People’s Choice Award went to Nesian Mystik who also won Best Urban Album for Polysaturated.

Ethnic music winners were Ngahiwi Apanui with Best Mana Reo Album for E Te Nei, Upper Hutt Posse for Best Mana Maori Album with Te Reo Maori Mixes and Pacific Soul took out Best Pacific Island Album for their self-titled CD. Trinity Roots won Best Roots Music Album for True.

Best Jazz Album went to Kevin Clark for Once Upon a Song I Flew while the NZ Symphony Orchestra’s recording of the late Douglas Lilburn’s The Three Symphonies won Best Classical Album.

The Tui for the highest Selling New Zealand Single of 2002 was won by Katchafire for Giddy Up.

The New Zealand Music Awards are presented by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and are in their 38th year.

In a poignant moment during the night’s celebrations, the late Dylan Taite posthumously received the Lifetime Achievement Award from RIANZ president Michael Glading.

In his tribute to one of the media’s biggest music fans, Mr Glading described Dylan as a true friend of the music industry someone who never looked for recognition and who “wanted to expose music he loved”.

The internationally-recognised The Datsuns may hale from Cambridge in the Waikato but it was the world the band conquered in 2002. Throwing caution to the wind, the quartet hit Europe and the US with the full force of their guitar-based rock whirlwind.

A number one hit in New Zealand, The Datsuns’ debut album The Datsuns reached number 17 in the US and number 25 in Europe. The band has appeared on the UK’s legendary ‘Top of the Pops’ TV show and has been reviewed in Rolling Stone magazine.

Bic Runga won seven major awards at the 1997 NZ Music Awards including Album and Single of the Year and her 2002 Album Beautiful Collision has gone Platinum four times. Two singles from the record have reached number one in New Zealand.

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