Nick Cave shortlisted for 2024 Australian Music Prize

18 November, 2024

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds have been shortlisted for the 20th annual Australian Music Prize for his most recent album ‘Wild God’.

It marks Cave’s fourth time being nominated for the prestigious award, having previously received recognition for 2016’s ‘Skeleton Tree‘, ‘Ghosteen‘ in 2019 and ‘Carnage‘, his collaborative album with Warren Ellis, in 2021.

The nine albums shortlisted come from a list of 46 nominated records, selected from a pool of 600 released by Australian artists over the past year.

Other acts making the shortlist are Amyl and The Sniffers for their album ‘Cartoon Darkness‘, Hiatus Kaiyote with ‘Love Heart Cheat Code’, both of whom have also been nominated previously.

The winning album will be announced on December 4, and will see the chosen artist receive a prize of $50,000 (£25,567) courtesy of sponsor SoundMerch.

Previous winners include Sampa the Great, Genesis Owusu, the Avalanches, Courtney Barnett, Gurrumul, King Stingray, and RVG who won the award in 2023.

Other shortlisted artists for 2024 include Grace Cummings, Rowena Wise, Dirty Three, Dobby, Audrey Powne and Kankawa Nagarra. Find a full list above.

In a statement, Cave said: “Thank you to everyone for their support. It means a great deal to us to be recognised by AMP.”

Amyl and The Sniffers’ Dec Mehrtens said the band are “grateful” to be shortlisted, adding: “Australian music is dear to our hearts, and we are incredibly proud to be able to create and perform the music we make.”

In a four-star review of ‘Wild God’, NME said: “Bad Seeds records are infamously loaded with gothic doom and gloom. Of course, this ain’t a poptastic LOLfest, and still coloured with the many shades of a life so challenging and weathered. But never has Cave been so freewheelin’ than on the giddy ‘Frogs’, ‘Jumping for love and the opening sky above’ as ‘Kris Kristofferson walks by kicking a can in a shirt he hasn’t washed for years’. With a lust for life, the once-dark prince is letting the light in.”

In other Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds news, the band are set to head to North America in 2025 to continue their ‘Wild God’ tour. You can buy tickets here and check out everything that went down at their London show earlier this month, here.

The post Nick Cave shortlisted for 2024 Australian Music Prize appeared first on NME.