ARIA washup

Dancefloor-maestros The Presets (above) and popmoppet Gabriella Cilmi were the big winners at the 22nd annual ARIA Awards last night in Sydney. The Presets haul of three awards (including Best Group and Album of the Year) adds to the two already garnered for production and artwork on Apocalypso.

The results for Australia's two-bit version of the Grammys held little surprises overall, with Cilmi and The Presets being hotly tipped to dominate. In fact we ran a tipping contest at our place last night over a couple of bottles of red, and I think there was only two awards where the four of us* didn't pick a winner. There was disappointment though that Eddie Current Suppression Ring didn't get a gong for Best Rock album, but frankly they never stood a chance against the other nominees, with the award going to The Living End.

Cut Copy and Midnight Juggernauts also missed out, and we thought Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu would pick up more than just the one award for Best Independent Release. It is interesting to note though that most nominees and winners, especially those for the big awards, either now live overseas or have had significant success outside Australia.

All the news and results are up on the ARIA Awards news site.

* disclaimer: one of the people in the room had actually voted in the awards, so, a good tipping result may have been assured!