2026 Aotearoa Music Awards: Who Will Win, Who Should Win

Geneva AM – Pikipiki
Kaylee Bell – Cowboy Up
Ladi6 – Le Vā
Lorde – Virgin
MĀ – Blame It on the Weather
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka
MOKOMOKAI – PONO
Reb Fountain – How Love Bends
Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl
The Beths – Straight Line Was a Lie
Tom Scott – ANITYA
Troy Kingi – Troy Kingi Presents: Night Lords

Who Will Win
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka

While recent history indicates that the Taite Music Prize doesn’t often win the biggest prize at the AMA — the last time Taite and AMA voters agreed on the best album was in 2019 for Avantdale Bowling Club’s self-titled debut — there’s just no looking past Marlon Williams this year. Lorde might be the most obvious competitor in this category on paper, but Virgin didn’t impress critics en masse.

The lovely narrative surrounding Te Whare Tīwekaweka, famously Williams’ first fully te reo Māori album and his most personal release to date, is also the stuff that voters lap up.

We loved it at Rolling Stone AU/NZ, too, placing it atop our Best New Zealand Albums of 2025 list.

Who Should Win
Geneva AM – Pikipiki

Isn’t the Taite Music Prize enough, Marlon? If voters are put off by this recent triumph, we think that Geneva AM* and Pikipiki, an artist and album we’ve been fully behind at Rolling Stone AU/NZ, deserve to win.

Pikipiki is one of the most joyous dance albums in recent years, an uplifting collection that celebrates Geneva AM’s Māori identity.

We ranked Pikipiki in the top 5 of our year-end best New Zealand albums list, just a few places behind Williams and Te Whare Tīwekaweka, and we seriously considered putting it at No. 1 at the time.

Geneva AM — aka Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland producer and artist Geneva Alexander-Marsters — subsequently featured in our Future of Music 2026 series, chosen as one of 25 ANZ acts we’re most excited about for the years ahead. She’s that talented.

*Geneva AM did also win at the Taite Music Prize this year, but it wasn’t in the main category.

Alien Weaponry – “Mau Moko”
Fazerdaze – “Motorway”
Hori Shaw & Te Wehi – “Ready to Ride”
Ladi6 – “LightBulb”
Lorde – “What Was That”
Marlon Williams – “Aua Atu Rā”
Paige – “twenties”
Tami Neilson – “Neon Cowgirl” (feat. Neil Finn)
The Beths – “Metal”
The Phoenix Foundation – “Vampire Class”
There’s a Tuesday – “Margo”
Tom Scott – “till then”

Who Will Win
Marlon Williams – “Aua Atu Rā”

Marlon Williams’ latest album is filled with standout moments, but “Aua Atu Rā” is probably the loveliest of them all.

The swaying, soulful song, inspired by ’60s Māori show bands, was the ideal lead single for Williams’ te reo debut — there’s nothing too complex here, Williams and co-writer Kommi purposefully keeping things simple.

“As a songwriter, I cherish simplicity, but as a speaker of Māori, I had a bucketload of whakamā to push through before I could even approach my friend Kommi about helping me write songs in Māori,” as Williams said upon its release. “We took this song out on the road with us five years ago and it just felt so damn good to play. I’m proud of it for reasons deeper than I’ve felt as a songwriter before. This song acted as a guiding light for the rest of the album to follow.”

The great beauty of “Aua Atu Rā” for the more general listener is thus: upon hearing the song for the first time, this painfully Scottish writer instantly looked up the te reo lyrics in order to sing along. It’s a beautiful creation.

Who Should Win
Marlon Williams – “Aua Atu Rā”

See above. The music video is excellent too (watch below).

Alien Weaponry – Te Rā
Dick Move – Dream, Believe, Achieve
MOKOMOKAI – PONO
Phoebe Rings – Aseurai
Ringlets – The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies)
The Beths – Straight Line Was a Lie

Who Will Win
The Beths – Straight Line Was a Lie

It’s perhaps because of The Beths’ incredibly high standard that it felt like their most recent album flew slightly under the radar — at least in comparison to its predecessor, the all-conquering Expert in a Dying Field (2024).

Straight Line Was a Lie is equal to the latter album in both storytelling and musicianship, but it just fell behind in critical and commercial stature, becoming the power-pop band’s lowest-charting album in Aotearoa since 2018’s Future Me Hates Me.

However, AMA voters love The Beths (as they should). Both Expert in a Dying Field and their second album, Jump Rope Gazers (2020), won Album of the Year, so a third win in this category is likely.

Who Should Win
Dick Move – Dream, Believe, Achieve

The Best Group category is so strong this year, from powerful hip-hop trio MOKOMOKAI (more on them later) to Alien Weaponry and their usual metal excellence, but Dick Move deserve to narrowly see off their competition.

That’s if voters aren’t put off by their outspoken political punk, that is — I truly hope they’re not. In an election year, speaking up for what you believe in matters more than ever, so an award going to a band like Dick Move would be significant.

Geneva AM – Pikipiki
Ladi6 – Le Vā
Lorde – Virgin
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka
Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl
Tom Scott – ANITYA

Who Will Win
Lorde – Virgin

Lorde trails only Marlon Williams in nominations, and there’s no chance in hell that Aotearoa’s biggest music star walks away empty handed on the night (even if she doesn’t attend the ceremony). If Williams, as we expect, locks her out of the main prize with his superior album, then some of the smaller categories will offer Lorde a better chance.

Lorde is a proper pop solo artist, constantly pushing herself and her sound to new extremes. No one would begrudge her this win.

Who Should Win
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka

Yes, the excellent Kommi helped guide Williams during his album’s creative process. Yes, the reliable Yarra Benders band were there by his side for much of it too. But Williams still deserves to be recognised as a ‘solo’ artist for myriad reasons.

Firstly, how deeply personal the journey to his first te reo album was. “Through the process of constructing these songs, I’ve found a means of expressing my joys, sorrows and humour in a way that feels both distinctly new, yet also connects me to my tīpuna and my whenua,” Williams said when his album was first announced.

Secondly, as our recent review of his Tāmaki Makaurau tour show highlighted, there are few more charismatic and accomplished live performers than Williams in Australasia. In an era of music where male solo artists have been decidedly lacking, Williams has excelled.

Hamo Dell – “Tā Roha”
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka
MOHI – “Ka Rea’”(feat. Pare)
Nikau Grace – “He Aha Te Aha” (feat. Te Kapa Haka o Ngāti Whakaue)
Rob Ruha, Troy Kingi & Kaylee Bell – “Matariki Hunga Nui”
Stan Walker – “Mō Āke Tonu” (feat. Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke)

Who Will Win
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka

Is this the strongest year for this category yet? As AMA noted when the finalists were announced, 2025 was a landmark year for waiata reo Māori: Kiwis streamed music with te reo Māori lyrics more than 69 million times, an increase from 64 million the previous year. Sales of te reo Māori albums also tripled on the previous year.

Any of the other names in this category, which recognises recordings with at least 50% te reo Māori content, would have stood a great chance of winning in any other year, but the biggest te reo Māori album of 2025 will win. There’s no way voters don’t overwhelmingly go for Williams (Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tai) here.

Who Should Win
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka

Hori Shaw – “I Know a Place”, “Ready to Ride” (w. Te Wehi), “Catch a Wave”
MĀ – Blame It on the Weather
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka
Stan Walker – “Bulletproof”, “Soul Deep”, “Could You Be Loved” – from Live From Parachute Studios, 2025
TAWAZ – “Tuituia Rā” (w. Chris Tamwoy & Marei), “E Ipo” (w. Mereana & HERA), “Te Wahine” (w. Emily Wurramara)
Te Wehi – “Ready to Ride” (w. Hori Shaw), “Unfortunately”, “Raining”, “Didn’t Change a Thing”, “OH AH”, “Far Far Away”, “Light Up”, “Masterly Man”

Who Will Win
Marlon Williams – Te Whare Tīwekaweka

Could we see a surprise in this category, perhaps if voters are fed up of rooting for Williams elsewhere? Probably not. It feels like he’s approaching clean sweep territory this year.

Who Should Win
MĀ – Blame it on the Weather

Could we see a surprise in this category, perhaps if voters are fed up of rooting for Williams elsewhere? Maybe! Certainly if enough of them have listened to MĀ’s Blame it on the Weather, an incredible album which journeys through neo-soul, jazz, hip-hop, and plenty more with the Te Whanganui-a-Tara artist’s typical style. It’s also a record that’s deeply in touch with the natural world, Te Taiao, as MĀ ponders her job as a kaitiaki as well as climate emergency awareness.

Grecco Romank – Arts Colony
MĀ – Blame It on the Weather
Phoebe Rings – Aseurai

Who Will Win
MĀ – Blame it on the Weather

As we wrote above, 2025 was a blockbuster year for Māori artists, and MĀ’s contribution had a lot to do with that success. If Williams sweeps the te reo categories, as he very well might, then Best Alternative Artist could offer MĀ her best chance of a win on the night. And as we also wrote above, Blame It on the Weather is a stunning album. It deserves its flowers in some capacity.

Who Should Win
Grecco Romank – Arts Colony

MĀ is fantastic, as are dream-pop purveyors Phoebe Rings, but if we treat this category in a most literal sense — “alternative” — Grecco Romank are as purely “alternative” as it comes.

The Tāmaki Makaurau trio’s sound is near-indescribable, a boundary-pushing, dazzling mix of futuristic electronic beats, dangerous techno, riotous rave, and almost every other underground sound you can think of.

Being the most “alternative” band isn’t enough of a reason to give a band an award, though, which is why it’s lucky that Arts Colony, Grecco Romank’s latest album, is their career-best work, featuring barmy collaborations with Princess Chelsea (“Don’t Get Caught”) and alluring-cum-lurid anthems like “2 Hot 2 Hunt”.

Aotearoa is a country with a proud history of weird (complimentary) music, and Grecco Romank are more unafraid than most to delve where other musicians won’t.

Jenny Mitchell – Forest House
Kaylee Bell – Cowboy Up
Tami Neilson – Neon Cowgirl

Who Will Win
Jenny Mitchell – Forest House

It feels like Bell and Neilson have a new album cycle every six months, and while this is far from a bad thing for artists of their calibre, it does mean that they’ve been in this position before: the pair have shared the Best Country Music Artist award between them for the last four years. It’s a quite remarkable run that speaks to their respective consistency.

So if voters have done their due diligence, this fact could influence the voting in this category. It’s lucky, then, that the third member of this category, Jenny Mitchell, released the stunning Forest House last year.

The singer-songwriter’s fourth album blends personal and universal storytelling to create a collection that’s both heartbreaking and uplifting.

Who Should Win
Jenny Mitchell – Forest House

See above.