The 2025 Taite Music Prize is just weeks away.
Independent Music NZ (IMNZ) today (March 27th) announced the recipient of this year’s IMNZ Classic Record Award, and Shihad was the logical choice, the honour coming off the back of their blockbuster farewell tour.
The award, which acknowledges a timeless Aotearoa album released over 20 years ago that continues to inspire today, will celebrate the hard-rock band’s Killjoy (Wildside Records 1995).
The nominees for the Auckland Live Best Independent Debut Award, which recognises Aotearoa’s most promising new artists, were also confirmed today. Pony Baby, VIDA, 花溪 Flowerstream, and Byllie-jean will compete to win a $2,000 cash prize, a performance or technical upskilling opportunity from Auckland Live, and, new for 2025, a $1,200 studio recording package from Parachute Studios.
But what about the nominees for the main music prize?
Hoping to follow last year’s worthy winner Vera Ellen are Georgia Lines, Fazerdaze, MOKOTRON, DARTZ, and more, with 10 excellent Aotearoa albums released in 2024 chosen from a record-breaking 80 submissions.
The Taite Music Prize winners, including the NZ ON Air Outstanding Music Journalism Award and Independent Spirit Award, will be announced at Auckland’s Q Theatre on April 15th.
Ahead of the event, you can get to know the 10 Taite Music Prize finalists better below. From revealing interviews to album reviews, Rolling Stone AU/NZ brought you the best and most in-depth coverage of all nominated acts.
More information about the 2025 Taite Music Prize is available here.
2025 Taite Music Prize Finalists
Anna Coddington – Te Whakamiha
We featured several tracks on Anna Coddington’s album in our Best New Zealand Music of the Week roundups. The full album deservedly made it into our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list, reaching No. 37.
“Anna Coddington comes ready to party from the outset of Te Whakamiha.
Her latest album opens with the funky “Kātuarehe”, a bilingual waiata that was a worthy winner of the top prize at the 2024 APRA Silver Scroll Awards. And while nothing tops the inviting funk of that opening track, Coddington’s first full body of work featuring te reo Māori has plenty of danceable tracks left to entertain listeners,” we wrote.
We also praised Te Whakamiha as an Aotearoa album to check out ahead of Matariki 2024.
DARTZ – Dangerous Day to Be a Cold One
It’s a dangerous day to be a punk rock fan thanks to DARTZ,” we wrote of the Band From Wellington (well, not for much longer) in a four-star review of their rollicking second album.
“To call DARTZ Aotearoa’s answer to The Chats would be immediately correct but more generally reductive, because there’s so much going on under DARTZ’s furious and fun anthems: there’s great wit, honest storytelling, and effortless ensemble work,” our review continued.
“Opener ‘Earn the Thirst’ celebrates the importance of putting in the hard yards before having a beer, and it sums up DARTZ right now: they’re enjoying themselves immensely after finding their hard-earned place in the New Zealand music scene.”
A Dangerous Day to Be a Cold One was a top 10 entry in our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list.
DARTZ really need to be experienced up close, though, which is why we reviewed their rowdy Auckland show during last year’s NZ Music Month.
Delaney Davidson – Out of My Head
As well as being included in multiple Best New Zealand Music of the Week roundups, Davidson also made it into our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list – but not for his Taite-nominated album.
Instead, we celebrated Happiness Is Near, his folk album with Barry Saunders, in the list, placing it at No. 44.
“Lyttelton’s award-winning Delaney Davidson and Barry Saunders create more songwriting magic together on Happiness Is Near. ‘This was a quieter collection. More folky. Just two guys with their guitars and their songs,’ Davidson said about the album, and sometimes that’s all you really need,” we wrote.
Earth Tongue – Great Haunting
Great Haunting just made it into the Top 20 on our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2025 list.
“Musical duos are a precarious venture – for every Simon and Garfunkel and White Stripes, there’s a Royal Blood and Black Keys – but Earth Tongue’s Gussie Larkin and Ezra Simons, partners in music and in life, are of the former vintage,” we praised.
“The fuzz-rock duo create an unrelenting racket from start to finish on their second album, a record that perfectly announces their arrival on the LA-based label In the Red Records.”
We also hailed album highlight “Out of This Hell” as a Song You Need to Know, although we could have said the same of multiple tracks on Earth Tongue’s blistering and theatrical album.
Fazerdaze – Soft Power
Fazerdaze releasing her second album, seven years after the breakout success of her acclaimed debut, Morningside, was one of the success stories in New Zealand music last year.
Amelia Murray, the Christchurch-based indie-pop artist behind the project, finally told fans about what had been going on in her life away from music, holding nothing back in an in-depth, vulnerable interview.
“[Soft Power] was definitely the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said. “If I didn’t have this record, I don’t know what I would have clung onto through what I was going through.
Fazerdaze’s interview featured in our special Musicians on Musicians issue, which hit newsstands last December. Our December-February also featured a glowing review of Soft Power, which noted Murray pushed “the boundaries of her indie-pop while retaining the raw intimacy that defined her quietly brilliant earlier work.”
When it came time to pick our number one New Zealand album of 2024, Soft Power was a deserved winner.
“Soft Power would have topped our list based on the merits of the music alone, but it’s the story behind the album that means it was the only choice for #1. The passing of time is unforgiving for artists, particularly female pop artists, so for Fazerdaze to return with such an accomplished, uncompromising album is a testament to her talent. New Zealand is lucky to have her back,” we wrote.
Georgia Lines – The Rose of Jericho
To celebrate her debut album, Georgia Lines performed a stunning Rolling Stone AU/NZ ‘In My Room’ session in the very studio she made the record (watch below).
We had high praise for The Rose of Jericho in a four-star review: “Make no mistake, the record leans into piano-driven R&B and indie-pop, but with so much imagery and truth in each song, it sits in a room of its own. The Rose of Jericho captures the internal struggle we all feel at some point — that’s the magic of Georgia Lines.”
Lines’ debut reached No. 6 in our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list, which led to us calling her “New Zealand’s next premier pop balladeer” while comparing her to Brooke Fraser.
Rolling Stone AU/NZ proudly hosts Lines’ INTROS series, which is back for its fourth season. Check out her latest interview with rising star Bella Rafflyn here.
Holly Arrowsmith – Blue Dreams
Holly Arrowsmith’s third album was firmly in the discussion about which album should top our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2025 list, ultimately earning a No. 4 slot.
“The Christchurch-based singer-songwriter started recording Blue Dreams when she was seven months pregnant, so it’s no surprise that it’s suffused with weighty themes: life and death, faith and doubt, as well as conflicting emotions like despair and hopefulness,” we wrote.
“Despite the upheaval of that time in her life, Arrowsmith often sings with a confronting serenity on Blue Dreams, as if these songs were recorded in retrospect, only yesterday, in the soothing glow of hindsight.
Arrowsmith discussed her album in an August interview. “Blue Dreams is a collection of songs from a very intense period of my life. It delves into living with depression and anxiety, weathering the loss of loved ones and ideals and the huge transition into motherhood in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. She also opened up about the response from her with fans, calling it “overwhelming and so generous.”
Mel Parsons – Sabotage
Parsons’ sixth album earned a four-star review thanks to featuring “some of the singer-songwriter’s best work to date.”
“All the references to bruises, calluses and scars imply Parsons has seen some tragedy, but Sabotage is pure triumph,” our review added.
“Raw singer-songwriter albums don’t come much better than Sabotage, Mel Parsons’ sixth album,” we hailed in placing the record at No. 33 on our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list.
MOKOTRON – WAEREA
One of the most special albums to come out of the Aotearoa electronic music scene in years was highly praised in our Musicians on Musicians issue.
The Māori producer’s personal project also reached No. 2 on our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list, and it really could have taken out the top spot.
We even called it: “There’s no way that MOKOTRON won’t be a serious contender at next year’s Taite Music Prize and Aotearoa Music Awards,” we shrewdly wrote at the time, adding that WAEREA “is a mighty album.”
Troy Kingi – Leatherman & the Mojave Green
The ever-consistent Troy Kingi’s latest album made it into our 50 Best New Zealand Albums of 2024 list at No. 49.
“Who says you can’t make desert rock if you don’t live in the desert? Troy Kingi took to Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree National Park to record Leatherman & the Mojave Green,” we wrote.
“Now on the eighth entry in his intriguing 10:10:10 project (10 albums in 10 years), Kingi doesn’t sound tired in the slightest as he nears the end of his mission.”
