NZ Music Awards: Where are the women?

Kiwi musicians Anika Moa, Gin Wigmore, Kimbra and Brooke Fraser.

The names have been read out, the champagne has been popped, a few beers cracked open, and a whole bunch of New Zealand artists will be feeling rather chuffed at their nominations for this year's Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, which were announced at a ceremony at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland on Tuesday evening.

It's a fairly diverse, genre-crossing round up of artists this year, with some notable new developments. Alt-country crooner Marlon Williams has cemented his rising popularity, storming ahead of many more radio-friendly acts by taking out five nominations, including Best Album and Best Single, while alternative psychedelic act Unknown Mortal Orchestra, is right behind with four nominations in almost all the same categories. With both acts having released extraordinarily good albums in the past six months, it will be a tight race.

Perennial favourites Six60 and Shihad have also both received a solid share of significant nominations, as have last year's newcomers Broods.

But as usual there are some significant absences. There are a whole clutch of critically acclaimed albums that have been favourites in the TimeOut office which haven't made the cut (SJD's Saint John Divine, Anthonie Tonnon's Successor, Mulholland's Stop and Start Again and Die Die Die's Swim to name but a few).

But the most glaring snubs this year seem to be for the ladies.

Kimbra, Gin Wigmore, Brooke Fraser and Anika Moa have all released critically acclaimed, highly regarded, career defining albums during the eligibility period, and all four of those women have previously won many, many awards.

One might even say they've dominated in past years.

However, Kimbra has been left out entirely, receiving no nominations at all for The Golden Echo, while Wigmore, Fraser, and Moa each have one nomination only - the three are all up for Best Female Solo Artist, but nothing else.

This is just odd.

Kimbra was snubbed completely from this year's New Zealand Music Awards.

Fraser has received 25 past nominations, Moa 20, Wigmore 11, and Kimbra won five awards from her seven nominations for her debut album Vows in 2012.

They've all taken a slightly new direction with their latest releases, challenging listeners with some experimentation, a different sound palette, or a darker set of themes, but it would disappointing to think this is what has caused the lack of nominations for these leading ladies.

A more positive view might be that there's just so many strong and successful local albums being released that the competition is tougher than it's ever been.